A review by luckypluto
Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 by Elizabeth Winder
5.0
Wow. I was completely mesmerized by this book. I saw it in a local bookstore and picked it up on a whim; what a fortuitous choice! I never knew that Sylvia Plath spent time as a guest editor at Mademoiselle in New York. As a New Yorker myself, I enjoyed reading about the city in the 1950s, but mostly I enjoyed reading about this pivotal time in Plath’s life. Winder’s biography was amazing; it covered only a small slice of Plath’s life, but did so in rich detail that really got to the heart of her breakdown. Pain, Parties, Work has inspired me to read more of Plath’s work, particularly her short fiction, which unfortunately, I think, does not get nearly as much attention as her poetry.
My only complaint about Pain, Parties, Work is in some stylistic choices; namely, many of the chapters are short, and it flits from topic to topic and anecdote to anecdote fairly quickly. There are many parts that I wish had gone into more detail. But I don’t think that style detracted much from the writing; I can safely say that I still loved the book as-is. Kudos to Winder for writing a great biography about one of the America's most interesting—and most misunderstood—writers. There is a tendency to romanticize the lives of “tortured artists” who died too young; Pain, Parties, Work did an excellent job of more realistically illustrating the life of one of literature’s most famous such writers.
My only complaint about Pain, Parties, Work is in some stylistic choices; namely, many of the chapters are short, and it flits from topic to topic and anecdote to anecdote fairly quickly. There are many parts that I wish had gone into more detail. But I don’t think that style detracted much from the writing; I can safely say that I still loved the book as-is. Kudos to Winder for writing a great biography about one of the America's most interesting—and most misunderstood—writers. There is a tendency to romanticize the lives of “tortured artists” who died too young; Pain, Parties, Work did an excellent job of more realistically illustrating the life of one of literature’s most famous such writers.