LOVER OF UNREASON - Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes's Doomed Love

Lover of Unreason - Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival And Ted Hughes's Doomed Love by Yeduda Koren and Eilat Negev

As many of us who have read Sylvia Plath's poems , I knew of her suicide at a young age and the fact that she was married to Ted Hughes, a poet in his own right. Beyond that, I knew nothing more. Apparently, there was much more. This book intrigued me from the start. I put aside the other books I was reading in order to concentrate on this. From the book flap:

Long seen as the woman who lured Hughes away from Sylvia Plath, Wevill has remained a mysterious figure. Now, for the first time we are given the story of her remarkable life and the seven years she spent with Hughes before killing herself, and their daughter, in a manner that inevitably recalled Plath's suicide six years earlier.

This is the first biography written about Assia Wevill and it draws on previously unavailable papers, diaries and correspondence. Included are photographs that bring the reader even closer to the families involved. The research that the authors compiled for this biography was voluminous and the method in which it was used to tell this story was seamless. Although each of the three main "characters" was exceedingly flawed and often unlikeable individuals, it was the reader's responsibility to draw from each the positives of each person that made this such a tragic story. I borrowed this book from the library, but it is a book that I would want to own to add to my personal library.