Review: Wintering, by Kate Moses

This is a wonderful semi-biographical novel about the last few months of Sylvia Plath's life. For me, I've always had a small fascination with the great American poet. While this book doesn't even begin to give reasons for her suicide, it does give us a brutally honest look at the emotions and thoughts that were running through Plath's mind, based on her diary entries. The disintegration of her marriage, the composing of her poetry, and the trials and tribulations of caring for her two children are documented here in surprisingly intimate detail.

Many readers will be familiar with the story of Plath, if not her works. Before reading Wintering, I'd read The Bell Jar, and so had a pretty good idea of who she was. Here, Moses gives Sylvia a voice of her own, and the poems serve as a catalyst for each chapter, in which Sylvia expresses herself.

Other reviewers have called this exceptional novel depressing, or even boring, I would disagree. True, a story about death, especially suicide, is always sad, bringing forth questions. But I really believe that in this novel, Kate Moses brings forth a new side of Sylvia Plath, in which her poems were closely interwoven with the details of her life.