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I was obsessed with Sylvia Plath’s work as a young teen, a fact that was worrisome to my mom, although being obsessed with her is probably rather normal (if not stereotypical) for a teenage girl. I can vividly recall reading The Bell Jar, checking Ariel out from the library, and in my most precocious moment, using my babysitting money to order a copy of Ted Hughes� Birthday Letters.

Yet it wasn’t until reading this biography that I realized how unknown she was to me, that I was besotted by the mammoth-sized cultural myth surrounding her. The immense praise for this book—that it is the definitive biography of Plath, the biography she’s always deserved—holds true, in my mind. To read Red Comet is to discover that Sylvia Plath the person—the writer—is so much more interesting and compelling than Sylvia Plath the icon of female hysteria.

Clark’s project is, in part, to refute the teleological narrative of Plath’s life that other biographies and writing about her rely on, which treat her death as the inevitable outcome of her life, with every moment pointing towards February 11th 1963. The image of Plath that has coincided with this treatment, of a mad poetess who existed as an almost supernatural vessel for poetry that came pouring out of her in her final months of life, is both sexist and dehumanizing, Clark argues.

Instead, she tells Plath’s life story by using her work as the guiding narrative: her career as a writer, her commitment to developing her craft, her desire to balance this work with being a wife and mother, and the political and social context she was writing in. What emerges is a portrait of a bright, ambitious, driven, and complex woman who desired so much in life, who I found exceptionally relatable.

Clark contends that not only should we consider Plath as one of the most important writers of the 20th century, we should also understand her specifically as a writer of the Cold War. It was fascinating to learn about Plath’s disdain for 1950s American militarism and nuclear aggression, and how her work connects nuclear anxiety with the patriarchal constraints placed on women.

Clark’s readings of Plath’s poems are exceptional—part of what made this book such a rewarding and memorable experience is that it has made me return to both The Bell Jar and her poetry; being able to track the changes in her developing voice and style in her Collected Poems alongside Clark’s narration of her life has been nothing short of extraordinary.

This biography is over 1,000 pages: I listened to it on audio, and it comes in at 45 hours. I would listen to it all over again in a heartbeat, and have ordered a physical copy that I can refer back to. What a profound, unforgettable reading experience.