Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton

I read this book in 2 hours. Did I like it, yes. It gave me an in depth peek into Sylvia Plath"s and Anne Sexton"s lives which I enjoyed, especially being a depressive myself. Did I wish it was more a fictionalized story with sprinkling of poems? Absolutely. But I was never promised that here so I can't complain. If I want to read their poems, I will look up their poetry. Its a good book if you want to learn more about their lives, marriages, views on misogyny, sex, abuse and feminism. I enjoyed it. I am not a poetry fan but I love these two ladies poems!

Carefully written and well researched account of the lives of two gifted poets and the challenges that they faced as writers who were also women. Each left a legacy to other poets who require inspiration in their own struggles with mental illness and the social judgments and literary bias that tarnish what should be a simple experience of the work.

The two stars are for the photographs. To Crowther’s credit, she always makes sure that you get some unique pictures.I’m one who appreciated Crowther’s beautiful repackaging of information in the book Sylvia in Devon. So I took a risk on this one — only to find that Crowther has adopted politically correct filler of the fake academic type. I improved the text immeasurably by striking through the following words wherever they appeared:privilege, privileged, gender, gendered, heterosexual, straight, white, Black (sic)The author makes trite observations about the media propaganda and mental health malpractice of the past — while never mentioning the ideological conditioning and ongoing malpractice of our own time.Regarding Plath and Sexton — the author makes claims which are not found in any other sources — and she does not indicate her unique source for these claims. Comparing and contrasting these two poets was a fine idea. In this book, the idea couldn’t be more poorly executed.

Gail. I loved this book.

Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are icons for those of us who grew up in the "second wave" feminist movement. I always knew whom they were, their perceived impact on women's literature and that they committed suicide. I read "The Bell Jar" in 1977. But this is a must-read book for so many reasons beyond what you think you know about Plath and Sexton. It is a beautifully drawn biography that puts in context their lives and their work. It's painful to read because both of them endured a lot of pain. But it reminds us that they were not their illness but whole women who had parents, husbands, in-laws, children, recipes, households, and who worked outside the home (in studies, at tables, attending workshops and conferences, at public readings and radio broadcasts, teaching). This was, of course, in the fifties and sixties when most middle-class women or higher-class women worked as housewives and mothers. Crowther organizes the book starting with an overview of how Plath and Sexton met and generally how their lives were similar, then separates each chapter by topic ("mental health" "writing"), addressing them as individuals. While there are similarities in their lives and they were only four years apart in age, they are very different personalities: Plath was an organized, good student, perfectionist whose gifts were recognized when she was quite young. Sexton a scattered bon vivant who was considered a poor student and who came to writing seriously after she developed serious postpartum depression. Each experienced periods of severe illness and hospitalization. Each received some treatment we would recognize as normal and familiar and other treatments that horrify. The research is impeccable, the writing beautiful. You need not know who the subjects are to love this book because it is a thoughtful, compassionate, and interesting read. It's about fascinating people who did not quite fit into their era and so made waves. Big waves with the advent of "Confessional Poetry" and writing on taboo subjects about what it means to be female. I don't know what I believe about Crowther's observations about what might have been different for Plath and Sexton if they had been born and grown up after feminism took hold again. I can't say whether her occasional suggestions that today's treatment of mental health issues would have been more effective for them. I can say that Crowther's views are drawn from significant knowledge of her subjects and the era and are reasonable food for thought, not-- "out there." I've not read poetry seriously for over forty years, but my next step is to purchase both women's works and spend more time with them. This book is that good.

This book absolutely didn't live up to its promise. I was hoping for a rich rendering of these women's friendship and jealousies, only to get a repackaged and not-very-well-written book that only connects the two women in a forced series of themes. If you want to read compelling nonfiction about creative women from this time period, pick up Maggie Doherty's unputdownable The Equivalents, or Heather Clark's masterful Plath biography Red Comet instead.

Nothing new under the sun here, except absolute howlers. For example this (just before Plath's suicide): "Plath is the prototype for today's breakup makeover. After kicking out Ted Hughes, she got a fabulous new hairdo, a new wardrobe, new jewelry, and a sassy new attitude."A breezy *Seventeen* magazine tone that's oddly off, weird, repeatedly. And the research is recycled, nothing she didn't use in her last book, nothing most people don't already know about Sexton or Plath.

Plath and Sexton felt an instant bond due to their experience of mental ill health and suicide attempts and I think it is fair to say that Sexton’s looser style of expressing herself in poetry had a big influence upon Plath whose poetry before this had been too stilted and structured. Anne Sexton’s poetry broke new ground with its exploration of various taboo topics such as mental illness and sexuality and this emboldened Plath to do the same. They were born at a misogynistic time in history when women were expected to be nice little stepford wives, popping out babies, cooking meals from scratch and scrubbing floors, staying silent about their intellectual views and meekly serving their husbands. Plath and Sexton’s poetic voices rebelled against that, paving the way towards the second wave of feminism many that women now enjoy the benefits of.

A book that really puts into context how difficult it must have been for ambitious, yet brilliantly talented women must have struggled and strived to make their voices heard in the 1950's

Gave as a present