Her Husband: Hughes and Plath - A Marriage (Hardcover)

"Joining the recent spate of books about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Middlebrook's is sure to be the gold standard. Astutely reasoned, fluidly written and developed with psychological acuity... Middlebrook breaks new ground in tracing the couple's interactive creative relationship, suggesting that neither would have produced his or her best poetry without the other... a balanced assessment of the legacy of a troubled marriage and the works of art it engendered." Publisher's Weekly 'Middlebrook is a thorough and careful guide through this brief but endlessly intriguing marriage. Her knowledge of the poets' work, her ability to trace currents and themes, and her singular vision in synthesizing it all is downright mystifying' The Boston Globe 'The Narrative of HER HUSBAND cannot help but fascinate, providing new information and insight... The results are considerably persuasive' Michico Kakutani, NEW YORK TIMES "Joining the recent spate of books about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, all of which concern the sources of their poetry and their dysfunctional marriage, Middlebrook's is sure to be the gold standard. Astutely reasoned, fluidly written and developed with psychological acuity, the work is a sympathetically balanced assessment of two lives that flamed brightly with the incandescent fire of creative genius." Publisher's Weekly, August 10, 2003 "In her fascinating new book ... Middlebrook is a thorough and careful guide through this brief but endlessly intriguing marriage. Her knowledge of the poets' work, her ability to trace currents and themes, and her singular vision in synthesizing it all is downright mystifying." Boston Globe, October 8, 2003 "The journey that she takes us on exhilarates, even as it also makes us tremble." Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2003 "Unquestionably the best book written thus far on these complicated geniuses is Diane Middlebrook's. ... she brings a compelling illumination of the poetry as well as the specifics of biography to her subject." Baltimore Sun, October 12, 2003 "Middlebrook is a sharp reader of poetry and prose, with a finely tuned ear for the call-and-response quality of Hughes' poetic dialogue with his dead artist-muse-wife. ... Middlebrook's careful annotation of the intricate dance Plath and Hughes perform not only with each other but with the powerful images and ideas that, as artists, they work to shape makes Her Husband a compelling study of two great poets." Chicago Tribune October 12, 2003 "The narrative of Her Husband cannot help but fascinate, providing new tidbits of information and insight to anyone who has followed the melodrama of the poets' relationship and the scholarly deconstruction of their art and their lives." New York Times, October 14, 2003 "Middlebrook, the author of a seminal biography of poet Anne Sexton, presents the most balanced, most literary and interpretatively astute, and best-written analysis yet of the saga of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes...discerning...deeply moving." Booklist, October 15, 2003 "Her Husband makes a convincing case that their work was even more compelling than their lives. For this couple, that's an accomplishment." Entertainment Weekly, October 17, 2003 "Her Husband paints a balanced portrait of the Plath-Hughes marriage as a deeply emotional, erotic union and an extraordinarily productive one...by focusing on the lasting impact the marriage had on the creative life of Ted Hughes, this book ingeniously accesses Plath's posthumous legacy through the poetry of her husband." Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 19, 2003 "Middlebrook breaks gender ranks by writing a book that not only acquits Hughes of the most serious charges-'Depression killed Sylvia Plath,' Middlebrook pointedly writes-but goes on to argue that in certain ways, their marriage never ended. ...She's immensely sympathetic to his masculine project... not that Middlebrook is a partisan of Hughes's, rather, she's a partisan of poetry." New York Magazine, October 20, 2003

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six and a half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world and brought new significance to his poetry. In this stunning new biography of their marriage, Diane Middlebrook renders a portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet and as a husband, haunted - and nourished - his entire life by the aftermath of his first marriage. Middlebrook presents Hughes as a complicated, conflicted figure: sexually magnetic, fiercely ambitious, immensely caring and shrewd in business. She argues that Plath's suicide, though it devastated Hughes and made him vulnerable to the savage attacks of Plath's growing readership, ultimately gave him his true subject - recreating himself for posterity through his marriage to Sylvia Plath and his struggles within his own historical circumstances.