Angry, impassioned ... Van Duyne is...effective in her takedown of the literary establishment that closed ranks around Hughes to protect him against feminist pushback from the 1970s on. She is less effective, regrettably, in capturing Plath in her entirety as a woman and an artist ... All this material is compelling and well argued; it would be a diehard admirer of Ted Hughes indeed who did not come away with the conviction that he was a deeply troubled man ... There’s much to admire in Loving Sylvia Plath, but it’s an addition to Plath studies, not quite the 'reclamation' of the subtitle.
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