Anne Sexton: A Biography [Paperback]

Diane Middlebrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 1992

Anne Sexton began writing poetry at the age of twenty-nine to keep from killing herself. She held on to language for dear life and somehow -- in spite of alcoholism and the mental illness that ultimately led her to suicide -- managed to create a body of work that won a Pulitzer Prize and that still sings to thousands of readers. This exemplary biography, which was nominated for the National Book Award, provoked controversy for its revelations of infidelity and incest and its use of tapes from Sexton's psychiatric sessions. It reconciles the many Anne Sextons: the 1950s housewife; the abused child who became an abusive mother; the seductress; the suicide who carried "kill-me pills" in her handbag the way other women carry lipstick; and the poet who transmuted confession into lasting art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Middlebrook's balanced biography reconstructs the life of the late poet in extraordinary detail. Photos. New afterword. Author tour . ( Nov. )no mention of controversy over use of tapes, and ensuing bestsellerdom? surely this is what new afterword is about/we don't have information on this/also it never hit PW's bestseller list/pk
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A wonderful book, just, balanced, insightful, complex in its sympathies and in its judgment of Sexton both as a person and as a writer... a deeply moving account."-- The New York Times Book Review

"Judicious and canny. [Middlebrook] appreciates both Sexton's gifts as a poet and her attractive side as a human being...but looks at her destructive weaknesses with a steady eye." -- Time

"Sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental ... intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing." -- Joyce Carol Oates, Washington Post Book World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (October 27, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679741828
• ISBN-13: 978-0679741824
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A psychoanalytic assessment of Sexton., May 22, 2000

By 

hermione31 "hermione" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anne Sexton: A Biography (Paperback)

This novel utilizes records from the thousands of hours of therapy Sexton underwent (most notably with Dr. Martin Orne). As a result of this, the slant of this biography is more psychological than previous books. It is scrupulously detailed though, which is a real treat for those who want to know what her life was on a micro-level. It is fascinating to read the excerpts of her therapy sessions and then be able to relate her actions to her psychological state of mind and see how all of it influenced her poetry.

This is not a particularly literary biography - so if you are a PhD in Literature, it probably won't add anything to your understanding of Sexton's use of meter or rhyme schemes. It rigorously follows the events of her life but does not spend much time on her formative years. However, the scope and depth of Middlebrook's psychological research is wonderful, and someone who appreciates both psychology and literature will enjoy this book immeasureably.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A well rounded biography of a great confessional poet., January 21, 2000

By 

Christian Engler (Woburn, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anne Sexton: A Biography (Paperback)

Diane Wood Middlebrook's biography of Anne Sexton was balanced and insightful enough so as not to be too intrusive; it is simple and direct, as I believe this biography ought to be. It could be much more. True. But that would somehow seem indecent. It is a written work that will tantalize many readers to want to know more of Sexton's earlier life and later chaotic often disgusting behavior. Anne Sexton did indeed have some major psychological problems. She envied Sylvia Plath's suicide and inflicted mental abuse on her family that trangressed the boundries of chaotic. She has often been criticized for the themes that she used in her poetry: her mental breakdowns, her severe shortcomings as a wife and mother, her liberal use of female bodily sexuality, her 'womanism' and other scattered amorphous problems that she endured but that is not fully covered with very much depth in this work. To deny Sexton's mentle problems or attribute her abhorrent behavior to simple staments that she 'wanted attention' is to cast away the deamons that led her to commit suicide in the first place or write the highly noted poems "The Operation" in All My Pretty Ones, for which she garnered a National Book Award nomination or "Mother And Jack And The Rain" or "Menstruation At Forty" in Live or Die, for which she won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This biography has also been condemmed for the use of private conversations that Sexton had with her psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Orne, a fact that had and still does many in the profession gravely unhappy. In the forward and book jacket to The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton by her friend and fellow poet, Maxine Kumin, she states: "The stuff of Anne's life, mercilessly dissected, is here in the poems. Of all the confessional poets, none has had quite Sexton's 'courage to make a clean breast of it' ...Anne Sexton has earned her place in the cannon." Whatever her morals (or lack of them) or major priorities which always came second, she was one hell of a fantastic, little understood poet who truly added something unique to the genre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for biography and poetry fans alike, August 14, 2003

By 

A. Thayer (Midwest, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anne Sexton: A Biography (Paperback)

You don't have to be a poetry afficianado to find this uniquely well-researched biography fascinating. Middlebrook makes ample use of the beautiful-but-mad-housewife-turned-poet angle, but does the more challenging job of examining the contradictions between Sexton and her work. Controversial access to Sexton's therapy records aside, Middlebrook explores the humanity behind a disturbed (and disturbing) woman who used any means at her disposal--sex, therapy (at the same time, in some instances), alcohol, drugs, her children and her poetry--in an attempt to stay afloat.