Published by St. Martin’s Press, 2003

Reviewed by Sofia Burgess, Leesburg Branch Library

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and fiction writer who was married to British poet Ted Hughes. Plath’s poetry and writing was ripe with images of anguish and despair. Kate Moses has created a work of fiction which chronicles the last few years of Plath’s life. “Wintering” reveals Sylvia Plath to us in a new and interesting way.

In this book Sylvia is portrayed as a woman who is struggling to understand herself and make sense of her roles as a parent, daughter and ex-wife. The roles she believes she must perform seem to weigh her

down: her relationship with her mother is strained an riddled with anxiety; her marriage is over and she is left responsible for two children as her husband moves on with his lover. Sylvia’s previous disposition for depression and emotional instability creates a canvas on which these events unfurl.

Having read “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath (which is semi-autobiographical) I was familiar with her previous attempts at suicide and her subsequent hospitalization. I was curious to read how Kate Moses might create a Sylvia who is authentic and not ensconced in myth and despair. I am relieved that Kate Moses did not attempt to justify or explain Sylvia’ tragic suicide. Instead she manages to give Sylvia a strength and presence of mind that leaves her tragic death as much an enigma as it had been.

“Wintering” possesses beautifully lyrical language that is evocative of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. It is almost as if Sylvia were speaking of her own grief. The book provides a perspective into the heart of a pain and uncertainty that was Sylvia’s own. It opens up her soul for us to see that she was struggling with something that ultimately she could not survive. After reading this book we are not any closer to understanding the reason for her suicide, but we are much closer to understanding her pain and isolation. Her struggle to achieve balance in all the roles she inhabited only resulted in agitation and a fierce longing to do better, or to do without.