May Sarton Among the Usual Days: A Portrait - Hardcover

May Sarton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393034518 ISBN 13: 9780393034516

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993

Synopsis

Still writing and growing in her early eighties, May Sarton long ago established a unique niche for herself in twentieth-century American literature: in numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, and personal journals she has created a body of work that is both artistically beautiful and comforting, while always testifying to the importance of courage and love in the survival of the perceptive individual.

May Sarton: Among the Usual Days is a treasure trove of her unpublished writing, carefully selected by longtime friend Susan Sherman from almost seventy years of correspondence and journals stored in the New York Public Library's Berg Collection, in May Sarton's own files, and in other archives. Thematically arranged, these passages reflect the seasons of her flowering as writer, teacher, daughter, lover, friend, and fiercely independent thinker. Lavishly illustrated with previously unpublished photos of Sarton and her closest companions from her infancy to the present, in May Sarton: Among the Usual Days all of the great abiding themes of her craft recur and expand: her respect for poetic form, hunger for love, appreciation for the centrality of solitude, commitment to enduring friendship, unabashed relish for the natural world in all its aspects, and zeal in pursuit of honesty above all, no matter what the cost. Her canny eye and ear bring alive her encounters with such luminaries as Virginia Woolf, Eva Le Gallienne, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bowen, Andre Malraux, Rebecca West, and Julian and Juliette Huxley. May Sarton: Among the Usual Days is finally a celebration, a cornucopia of earned wisdom and ardent candor that reveals over and again, in Sherman's words, the distinguishedwriter May Sarton's own "sacramentalization of the ordinary."

About this title

About the Authors

May Sarton (1912-1995) was an acclaimed poet, novelist, and memoirist.

Susan Sherman lived with May Sarton during her weekends, academic breaks, and summers, and assisted with Sarton's writing and correspondence during her life. She currently lives in New York City.

Reviews

Distilled from a voluminous body of letters and unpublished journals and poems gathered in several special-library collections across the country as well as in the author's personal archives, this intimate portrait is a significant addition to Sarton studies. Arranged, though without formal division, by subject (e.g., writing poetry, acting and the theater, European and American culture, books and authors, solitude, friendship, love--including homosexual love--gardens and flowers, the natural world, travels), the selections show not only Sarton's growth as a writer and a person, from as early as the age of eight, but also the constancy of her vision of art and life. Editor Susan Sherman's knowledgeable and sensitive commentary and careful documentation contribute substantially to what Sarton herself calls "far more revealing and accurate than any book I could have written." A real treasure for readers already acquainted with Sarton and her work, this collection will also be of interest to anyone whose concern with contemporary literature extends beyond the best-seller list. To be illustrated with photographs. Barbara Duree

For decades Sarton has been a successful writer, if not the darling both of the critics and the book-buying public. In a marketplace dominated by quick, easy reads, Sarton's thought and art are marked by an old-fashioned volubility. Her indomitable spirit is positively inspiring: "the only creative way is dissatisfaction, relentless self-criticism, and a new start each time," she writes. Sherman has published excerpts from Sarton's unpublished writings in an ingenious format that groups the passages around common topics (writing, gardening, travel, etc.) and links them via Sherman's own comments. If some of the linking comments seem excessively worshipful of a writer who has had, at best, a modest impact on contemporary letters, even readers who don't know or appreciate Sarton's work will recognize this book as a model compilation of its kind.
- David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393034518
• ISBN 13: 9780393034516
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Susan Sherman