MixedEvening Standard (UK)The first thing to say is that the author quotes extensively from Plath’s work, a luxury denied in the past by her estate to most biographers ... Clark has also unearthed illuminating documents ... One of the aims of this biography, as set out in the prologue, is to rescue Plath from pathologisation — a tendency to view Sylvia’s suicide as her destiny. This may well be a noble aim, but the author underplays key scenes which show Plath in a less than flattering light ... unfortunately the trade-off results in a biography that, for all its merits — its great readability and astute analysis of the poetry — is in danger of becoming that dreaded thing: a hagiography.
