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Anne Sexton: A Biography by DianeMiddlebrook

Biography Reminds Us We Need To Read Anne Sexton

A critically acclaimed biography of Anne Sexton explores the work andtormented life of the powerful American poet, a woman who struggledwith mental illness throughout her career, finally taking her own life in1974. Reprint. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. NYT.This advice applies to anyone who has stumbled upon this page whetheror not you like biography or poetry or Anne Sexton. It is one of the fewbiographies I have read that I would describe as a true page-turner. Yes,Sextons life has all the ingredients of a page turner. Theres incest, theresadultery, theres substance abuse, theres mental illness. All this in the lifeof someone whose adulthood began as a rather typical 1950s housewife.Middlebrook does not spare us the gritty details, but neither does sheexploit her subject for mere sensationalism. Always, even in taking thecontroversial step of using Sextons psychotherapy tapes, shedemonstrates respect for her subject and for the surviving members of