Your Story, My Story
Book Feature - Your Story, My Story by Connie Palmen
HBL Note: When I was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Architecture, and Design at Indiana University, I used to take students to the Lilly Library to study fashion history. After acquiring a small collection of Sylvia Plath’s poetry manuscripts, her mother donated an extensive collection of letters, papers, and other memorabilia…including a large lock of her hair. Needless to say, the students (and I) were fascinated by the collection and Sylvia Plath’s story. Connie Palmen brings this story to life in her novel Your Story, My Story about the tumultuous love affair between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Scroll down to read more.
From the publisher:
In 1963 Sylvia Plath took her own life in her London flat. Her death was the culmination of a brief, brilliant life lived in the shadow of clinical depression—a condition exacerbated by her tempestuous relationship with mercurial poet Ted Hughes. The ensuing years saw Plath rise to martyr status while Hughes was cast as the cause of her suicide, his infidelity at the heart of her demise.
For decades, Hughes never bore witness to the truth of their marriage—one buried beneath a mudslide of apocryphal stories, gossip, sensationalism, and myth. Until now.
In this mesmerizing fictional work, Connie Palmen tells his side of the story, previously untold, delivered in Ted Hughes’s own uncompromising voice. A brutal and lyrical confessional, Your Story, My Story paints an indelible picture of their seven-year relationship—the soaring highs and profound lows of star-crossed soul mates bedeviled by their personal demons. It will forever change the way we think about these two literary icons.