In the art world, there are not many things juicier — nor more titillating — than a good, old-fashioned jealous rivalry. Mary McCarthy vs. Lillian Hellman comes to mind. Who can forget Tolstoy vs. Dostoyevsky vs. Turgenev? Then, of course, there’s Norman Mailer vs. pretty much everyone.
In his first foray into fiction, Bay Area journalist and former psychotherapist Lee Kravetz excavates yet another legendary feud: the infamously charged and complicated friendship between the darlings of the confessional poetry movement during the 1950s and 1960s — Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
“The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.” is structured in three alternating story lines over the course of nine “stanzas” or loosely themed sections. The first, set in 2019, is told from the perspective of 65-year-old Estee, a master curator from Boston’s St. Ambrose Auction House. Estee has come into possession of three notebooks suspected to be the original manuscript of Plath’s semiautobiographical “The Bell Jar,” written and published under a pen name just before Plath committed suicide in London in 1963.
另一个故事线,从1953年开始,遵循uphill battle waged by Dr. Ruth Barnhouse, the only female doctor on staff at McLean Hospital. It’s Barnhouse’s mission to not only gain respect for her unconventional treatment methods (field trips instead of electroconvulsive therapy, for example), but to also find a pathway into the tormented souls of her patients, especially that of Plath, who was deposited there after a botched suicide attempt when she was in college.
A final story line — by far the most engaging of the three — takes the form of a letter written to esteemed poet and professor Robert Lowell from Boston Rhodes, a pen name for Agatha White (a slightly camouflaged Sexton). The correspondence details Rhodes’ tortured feelings about Plath when the two women took a writing workshop of Lowell’s at Boston University, Rhodes’ own mental instability, and her efforts to sabotage Plath’s career in insidious ways from 1958 to 1963 to scratch her way to top-poet status.
“Last Confessions” is framed as a literary whodunnit of sorts. The novel asks: Are the three notebooks that were found in the attic of an old Boston Victorian actually authentic? If so, how did they end up there, and who, if not Rhodes, stole them from Plath before she died? Will they be sold to the highest bidder, or should they remain protected inside the hallowed halls of academia?
While that premise certainly drives the narrative and comes to a satisfying conclusion after a slow-to-build start, it isn’t what creates the pulse of the novel. Where Kravetz really stirs up the magic is in his depictions of the interplay between madness and art; Plath’s gnawing loneliness and insecurity; and Rhodes’ ever-present quest for attention and recognition.
文学history-savvy readers might also enjoy the myriad based-on-truth Easter eggs hidden throughout, like Rhodes’ unsuccessful attempt at gassing herself to death in her garage (the real Sexton succeeded at doing so in 1974).
Then there are the innumerable references to Plath’s and Sexton’s poetry and prizes — and the women’s gaggle of confidants and cohorts (Maxine Kumin, George Starbuck and the ever-philandering Ted Hughes have reoccurring supporting roles) — to enjoy.
Is all of “Last Confessions” true? Of course not. It’s fiction, after all. But Kravetz makes good use of history’s rich material to spin a captivating story about some of the art world’s most notorious writers and thinkers.
“The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.”
By Lee Kravetz
(HarperCollins; 272 pages; $25.99)
Kepler’s Books presents Lee Kravetz in conversation with Meg Waite Clayton:Virtual event. 6 p.m. March 8. Free, with a $15 suggested donation; $32-$43 with book. RSVP atwww.keplers.org.
Book signing:In person. 7 p.m. March 16. Free. Bookshop West Portal, 80 West Portal Ave., S.F. 415-564-8080.www.bookshopwestportal.com
Lee Kravetz in conversation with Janis Cooke Newman:In person. 1 p.m. March 26. Free. Book Passage Corte Madera, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. 415-927-0960.www.bookpassage.com