Review by New York Times Review
"Between the Sheets" begins with a bold premise. The book "sets out to demonstrate that none of the women artists mentioned here were victims at all, but that they chose their own fates knowingly and without the taint of victimization; that they chose such relationships in order to benefit their art." O.K., but what about the part where Henry Miller tries to persuade Anaïs Nin to destroy her diary? Or the chapter in which Ernest Hemingway attempts to sabotage the career of his wife, Martha Gellhorn, by writing for the same publication she does on the same topic (war), then telling her that a plane to the combat zone is for men only, leading her to find her own transportation, on a Norwegian freighter carrying dynamite? (Later she finds out the actress Gertrude Lawrence was on the plane.) McDowell's theory holds up in some instances but not in others, and she seems unwilling to address this inconsistency. She is at her best when her analysis does not intrude too much on her storytelling. The women's own words can be powerful, as in this letter from Rebecca West to H. G. Wells: "You can't conceive a person resenting the humiliation of an emotional failure so much that they twice tried to kill themselves: that seems silly to you. I can't conceive of a person who runs about lighting bonfires and yet nourishes a dislike of flame: that seems silly to me." McDowell, a literary journalist in Scotland, has culled incredibly juicy details. With so many affairs and broken hearts, the most surprising thing may be that anything got written in the last 100 years. J. Courtney Sullivan is the author of the novel "Commencement," which will be published in paperback next month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 4, 2010]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Critic, novelist and literary journalist McDowell (The Picnic) takes a scholarly but fascinating look at the love lives of women writers, revealing how writers like Anais Nin, Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath were affected by their romantic liaisons. Using their letters, journals and diaries, McDowell explores the ambitions and desires of nine writers, often uncovering tell-tale signs of dependence on their male counterparts. McDowell reviews some famous, oft-covered romances-including Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway (the celebrity couple of their day), Nin and Henry Miller, Plath and Ted Hughes-but also finds the relationships between figures like Elizabeth Smart and George Barker, or Rebecca West and H.G. Wells, also rich in power struggles regarding art and sex. Almost every union explored had devastating consequences for the women involved, but fueled some of their best work, begging some big questions: Would they have become writers without their entanglements with these men? And was success in their art ultimately worth the heartbreak? This stirring account lets their devotees decide. (Mar.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Review by Library Journal Review
In this engaging text, McDowell studies the intimate physical relationships of nine female writers and their literary partners. The Glasgow-based McDowell is a novelist (Picnic) and critic (e.g., Times Literary Supplement) whose own experience of a literary liaison led her to develop this work. Arranged chronologically, the book begins with Katherine Mansfield's relationship with John Middleton Murry in the 1910s-20s and ends in the 1950s with the most famous of the liaisons, Sylvia Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes. McDowell purposefully tackles the physical details of these relationships, asserting that while this may seem prurient, it is essential to understanding the central theme of desire in these authors' writings. She demonstrates that despite the fraught nature of many of their relationships, these women often subverted the stereotypes of the mistress or wife to the advantage of their own artistic ambitions. In this way, McDowell distinguishes her interpretation from many biographical works that have cast these women as victims of male dominance. Verdict This well-researched text will appeal to scholars of literature and feminist theory.-Rebecca Bollen Manalac, Sydney, Australia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A literary critic takes an intimate look at famous literary partnerships of the 20th century. Writers such as Anas Nin, Simone de Beauvoir, Katherine Mansfield, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Sylvia Plath, Rebecca West and Jean Rhys have long been considered essential to the development of modernist literature and the rise of feminism. In her nonfiction debut, McDowell (The Picnic, 2007) draws another connectioneach was paired romantically, with varying degrees of success, to other significant writers of the time. Examples include H.D. and Ezra Pound, West and H.G. Wells, Nin and Ford Madox Ford, and Nin and Henry Miller. Certainly, this is a tradition not limited to the modernist movement. Writers and artists have long been drawn to one another, complicating the concept of the muse versus the creator. McDowell successfully pins down particular parallels in her chosen relationships that are especially significant to their artistic goals. It is notable, for example, that these women are largely known as the victims of their relationships. They were, for the most part, all deserted or rejected by their husbands and lovers, often in a particularly public manner, or forced to participate in humiliating or degrading relationships. Each reacted dramatically to their failed relationshipsPlath taking the most drastic road by committing suicide after Ted Hughes' affair. McDowell questions the degree to which these women pined for their respective men, while also espousing the virtues of feminism and independence in their writing, hinting at what was often blatant hypocrisy. But she also speculates on the ways in which the menironically mostly less famous in death than their partnerswere able to provide the women with professional inroads, and also served as inspiration for some of their most influential works. The information is hardly new, but McDowell contextualizes it well, giving solid insight into a dynamic and influential group. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
