May Sarton

Starred review from June 16, 1997
"More than kisses," John Donne wrote, "letters mingle souls." And very few letters can have been more open, more anxious to mingle, than those of May Sarton's. Her carefully crafted volumes of poetry, the novels elegant with insistent intent, the autobiographical works of later years are all rich with the intellect sentience. However, the wide-ranging emotional journey of these letters, so admirably edited by Sherman, may finally bring Sarton the wider renown she always felt eluded her. An ardent correspondent since childhood, Sarton is free in in her declarations of love and longings, her revelations of urgencies to earn a living and uncertainties of life as a writer. The letters include Sarton's feelings about current issues; her wartime fears for the Europe where she was born; her anguish over love affairs gone awry; her dogmatic views; her illnesses, as well as what some recipients felt to be a claustrophobic demanding love. Long letters to the international group of writers, artists, political and scientific thinkers whom Sarton included in her epistolary "festival of friends," are often so utterly candid as to be overwhelming, exhausting. One artist and lifelong friend noted that a letter from Sarton was "a bloodrush," that he needed to "take to a private place and savour it alone, like a wonderful meal." Yet in her craft Sarton was aware of the need to be sparing in written thought: "Poetry is not an orchid, but a crocus. Simplicity is the essence of poetry." Sarton may have devoted most of her life to her crocuses, but this final collection is a different though equally beautiful greenhouse of orchids.

April 1, 2002
"ho do I write for? Certainly not
only for women... I guess I write for sensitive human beings wherever they are, however young or old, and of whatever sex. But I do not
write for academic critics, that's sure. Nor do they like what I write. It is a mutual lack of interest." Her regret over the lateness of critical acclaim for her work is among the revelations about the prolific (with more than 50 books to her credit) and beloved Sarton, poet, novelist and diarist. In a note of appreciation, her friend William Drake says Sarton the letter writer was always swift, candid, blustery, boisterous and even defensive, but, he sums up, "the most difficult people can be the most worth knowing and treasuring." Sherman (who also edited May Sarton: Selected Letters, 1916–1954) presents 200 of the thousands of letters Sarton wrote in the latter part of her life to a wide range of friends, relatives and readers. These letters are best read in conjunction with each of Sarton's published works as they were written and released; Sherman hopes fans and newcomers alike will be left with a clearly delineated self-portrait of the writer and the woman: while writing, both her own and others', is the primary focus of Sarton's correspondence, readers also witness her difficulty in accepting criticism, as well as her generosity and humanity toward friends, strangers and the world at large. Nothing, including her own inner workings, escapes Sarton's scrutiny and consideration. Entertaining, insightful and not the least bit sentimental, Sarton's letters provide a complex yet clear composite of a singularly bright mind. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. Agent, Timothy Seldes, Russell & Volkening. (Apr.)Forecast:The price of this seems steep, but that may not deter Sarton's devoted readers, of whom there are many.