New Books In Literary Studies

It is a struggle sometimes in biography to find new ways to write about subjects about whom many biographies have been written. This is particularly pronounced in the case of iconic figures of the 20th century (think: Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Onassis, Elvis Presley, F. Scott Fitzgerald), and an area in which the partial life biography can play an interesting role. Whereas biographers have more traditionally opted for what we call “cradle-to-grave” narratives, the partial life biography instead offers a slice of a life- a particular period that is explored in-depth. Such is the case with Elizabeth Winder‘s Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953(Harper, 2013). Plath’s is a story most everyone knows, and yet her time working in New York as an intern in Mademoiselle has not previously been studied outside of the context of all that came after, which is surprising because it’s an interesting period but also because her experiences then formed the basis for what s