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List Price: $16.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.88 You Save: $5.12 (32%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.52
EAN: 9780375760815
ISBN: 0375760814
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Date: September 10, 2002
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: September 10, 2002
Sales Rank: 74056
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.
Thirty years after her landmark biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, Nancy Milford returns with an iconic portrait of this passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself. Chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year, Savage Beauty is a triumph in the art of biography. Millay was an American original—one of those rare characters, like Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway, whose lives were even more dramatic than their art.
Amazon.com's Best of 2001:
Fans of Zelda, Nancy Milford's groundbreaking (and bestselling) biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald's tortured wife and muse, have been waiting impatiently since 1970 for Milford's promised follow-up about poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). It's finally here, and they will not be disappointed. Milford's vivid narrative limns an electric personality with psychological acuity while capturing the freewheeling atmosphere of America in the turbulent years following World War I. After 'Renascence' was published (when she was only 20) and she moved to Greenwich Village, Millay was the queen of bohemia, taking lovers with zest and voicing the reckless gaiety of a generation in her famous lyric, 'My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends-- / It gives a lovely light.' With her flame-red hair, milk-white skin, and a voice that thrilled audiences (making her poetry readings a welcome source of income), Millay was the archetypal 'new woman': powerful, passionate, and not to be ignored. But Milford makes it clear that her first loyalty was to her mother and sisters, and her deepest commitment to her writing. This juicy chronicle has famous names aplenty--critic Edmund Wilson and Masses editor Floyd Dell were among the men devastated by her refusal to be faithful--and lots of dissipation: Millay drank heavily and became addicted to morphine. It also takes a perceptive look at how an artist draws material from her life and at the strategies she uses to protect the wellsprings of creativity. Brief passages interspersed throughout delineating Milford's interactions with Norma Millay, the poet's younger sister and literary executor, might have been self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing; instead they offer intriguing snapshots of the complex process by which biography is made. The resulting book is a tour de force, and wildly entertaining as well. --Wendy Smith
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Intriging, sad, very well done
I was engulfed by the book in a profound sense. I like how Milford allows the reader to see exactly what the "players" wrote themselves. I don't like having things spelled out. Her method allows you to evaluate not only Mallay, but her siblings and mother, husband.
The only reason Norma is so highlighted is that she gave over her own intention (probably not very strong) to write about her sister's life herself by letting Milford have all the papers. And Norma was, at the time, the only one ... Read More
Rating:  - Too heavy on the research to be a good read
I was looking forward to this book, having enjoyed Milford's "Zelda" very much. But boy, you have to plow your way through seemingly every letter Millay ever wrote or received. Some details are relentlessly spelled out while other, more salient points don't get the attention they deserve. (What physical or mental problems were really at the root of her most serious breakdown? When, exactly, and why did her morphine addiction take root?) And I don't know what anyone else thought about it, but I felt ... Read More
Rating: - Enlightening
Surprised to find out she had a very active and interesting life. Would not know it by the writings she composed.
Rating: - I loved this book.
I picked this book up for the first time in a summer rental house. I couldn't put it down and I had to run out and buy my own copy when I got home. I was not familiar with Millay before reading this book, so I cannot compare it to the million other opinions of her, but as a narrative on its own I have been mesmerized. I think this is an extremely well written biography that captures the essence of the relationships we nuture and cherish. Everytime I pick it up again I slip effortlessly into a different ... Read More
Rating: - Edna St. Vincent Millay, Subject of Nancy Milford (oh, and she was a poet, too)
In this biography, Milford seems to be an historian first and a writer second. Or, perhaps, a prima donna first, an historian second, and then a writer. There is nothing wrong with either order unless one's prerogative in reading happens to be pleasure. Then, dear reader, it seems you have been "punk'd."
While I reveled in the details of Millay's life there were a few I wish Milford would have omitted: the "dramatic natural beauty" of the New England where Millay grew up; the lack of transition between ... Read More
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.52
EAN: 9780375760815
ISBN: 0375760814
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Date: September 10, 2002
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: September 10, 2002
Sales Rank: 74056
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks