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Additional book to look forward to in 2010

After the previous post, I found out about this forthcoming title by Lesley McDowell, Between the Sheets: Nine 20th Century Women Writers and Their Famous Literary Partnerships.

Look for this book on March 4, 2010 (Overlook Press) in the US and May 20, 2010 (Duckworth) in the UK. In Saturday's Irish Times, in a preview of the years books, Between the Sheets is mentioned with this quote, concerning Plath, "Lesley McDowell looks at literary love affairs, asking why,for instance, Sylvia Plath stumbled into a marriage that drove her to suicide." Plath and Hughes even made the cover!

About the book:

"The list of tortured sexual relationships between female writers and their male literary partners is long, but each relationship provokes the same question: would these women have become the writers they did without the experience of their own particular literary relationship?

"Focusing on the diaries, letters, and journals of each woman, Between the Sheets explores nine famous literary liaisons of the twentieth century. Lesley McDowell examines the extent to which each woman was prepared to put artistic ambition before personal happiness, and how dependent on their male writing partners each one felt themselves to be. She reveals how in many instances, their partnerships encouraged artistic innovation, established literary reputations, and liberated unspoken desires. Between the Sheets is a fascinating glimpse into the emotional and artistic lives of these great writers, and those of the men they chose to share their lives with."

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Comments

  1. Anonymous03 January, 2010 17:56

    Sounds really interesting, Peter. Will you review this?

    -Darcy

    ReplyDelete
  2. panther04 January, 2010 06:47

    A moot point, that, whether her marriage to Hughes drove her to suicide.What would she have been like being married to anyone else, or not at all ? Her distress certainly didn't START with Hughes.

    Having got that gripe out of the way, I do think this book sounds good.Fascinating subject. I wonder who the other writers discussed are ?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anna04 January, 2010 11:31

    Oh WOW! Looking forward to that one, and this may be in time to be included in my thesis! Yeeeey!

    http://lovingsylvia.tumblr.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter K Steinberg04 January, 2010 19:51

    Darcy - Yes I hope to review it. A galley is on its way to me now.

    I'll let you know, Sheila, which other writers are examined.

    Three cheers for your thesis Anna! Can you give us a hint as to the subject (or email me separately?).

    Cheers
    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous29 April, 2012 08:46

    Plath "stumbling into a marriage" with Hughes? I don't think so. She had been looking for this type of husband for years, and found him. And what does a a "tortured sexual relationship" really mean? And must "tortured sex" be central to a look at women's creative processes? Rather facile statements here, designed for sales, perhaps? owell.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jessica McCort08 November, 2013 13:36

    "Stumbled into"? About the most inappropriate description of that courtship ever LOL.

    ReplyDelete

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