Since her suicide at age thirty, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has been celebrated for her impeccable and ruthless poetry, which excels at describing the most extreme reaches of Plath's consciousness and passions. Her work includes the autobiographical novel,The Bell Jar, and such collections as The Collosus, Ariel, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Collected Poems. Based on exclusive interviews and extensive archival research, Rough Magic probes the events of Plath's life—including her turbulent marriage to the English poet Ted Hughes—in a biography that stands alone in its compassionate view of this fiercely talented, deeply troubled artist.
Paul Alexander is the editor of the essay collection Ariel Ascending: Writings About Sylvia Plath and the author of Rough Magic, a biography of Plath; Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean, the bestseller that has been published in 10 countries; Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race For Andy's Millions; Man of the People: The Life of John McCain; The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry's presidential campaign; and Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove. His bestseller Murdered was published by Rosetta Books as a Kindle Single.
A former reporter for Time, Alexander has published journalism in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, New York, The Nation, The Village Voice, Salon, Worth, The New York Observer, George, Cosmopolitan, More, Interview, ARTnews, Mirabella, Premiere, Out, The Advocate, Travel & Leisure, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Biography, Men's Journal, Best Life, The New York Review of Books, and Rolling Stone. In Europe, his journalism has appeared in Paris Match, Gente, and The Guardian. He contributes to The Daily Beast.
Shane Salerno's much-anticipated feature documentary Salinger, due out this fall, is based on Alexander's biography of J.D. Salinger, which has recently been republished. Alexander wrote Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen, an original screenplay about Kilgallen's investigation of the Kennedy assassination, for Twentieth Century Fox.
Alexander is the author of the plays Strangers in the Land of Canaan and Edge, which he directed. Developed at The Actors Studio, Edge, the critically acclaimed one-woman play about Sylvia Plath, ran in New York, where Angelica Torn received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; London; and venues in other cities, among them Miami, where New Times named Torn Best Actress. Edge toured Australia and New Zealand and enjoyed a second run in New York. In all, Torn performed Edge 400 times. Alexander is also the director of a British revival of Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden; New York Stories, an evening of one-act plays by Paul Kane that ran in New York; and Brothers in Arms, a documentary film about John Kerry and Vietnam (First Run Features).
Alexander is a graduate of The Writers' Workshop at The University of Iowa and a member of PEN American Center, the Authors Guild, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio. In the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He lives in New York City.
