The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.

A Novel

By: Lee Kravetz

Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Karissa Vacker, Teri Clark Linden

Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The Millions Most Anticipated Pick and A GMA March Reads Pick

“Lee Kravetz has created a bit of a miracle, a plot-driven literary puzzle box whose mystery lives in both its winding approach to history and its wonderous story. It’s a book full of ideas about inspiration and a love for language that translates across borders, physical and generational.”—Adam Johnson, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Orphan Master's Son

“Captivating . . . . Part truth, part fiction, the novel is an ingenious addition to an ever-growing body of work about Plath that has helped make her an American literary icon.”—Washington Post

Blending past and present, and told through three unique interwoven narratives that build on one another, a daring and brilliant debut novel that reimagines a chapter in the life of Sylvia Plath, telling the story behind the creation of her classic semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar.

A seductive literary mystery and mutigenerational story inspired by true events, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. imaginatively brings into focus the period of promise and tragedy that marked the writing of Sylvia Plath’s modern classic The Bell Jar. Lee Kravetz uses a prismatic narrative formed from three distinct fictional perspectives to bring Plath to life—that of her psychiatrist, a rival poet, and years later, a curator of antiquities.

Estee, a seasoned curator for a small Massachusetts auction house, makes an astonishing find: the original manuscript of Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, written by hand in her journals fifty-five years earlier. Vetting the document, Estee will discover she’s connected to Plath’s legacy in an unexpected way.

Plath’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Barnhouse, treats Plath during the dark days she spends at McLean Hospital following a suicide attempt, and eventually helps set the talented poet and writer on a path toward literary greatness.

Poet Boston Rhodes, a malicious literary rival, pushes Plath to write about her experiences at McLean, tipping her into a fatal spiral of madness and ultimately forging her legacy.

Like Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, and Theresa Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. bridges fact and fiction to imagine the life of a revered writer. Suspenseful and beautifully written, Kravetz’s masterful literary novel is a hugely appealing read.

©2022 Lee Kravetz (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Smart, and deliciously entertaining

The characters really come alive in the writing and through the actors. I couldn’t help but think that somehow the author had managed to be a fly on the wall in those historical yet private moments. The end of the novel was profoundly satisfying, creating a true tale of redemption through time, objects and legacy

Great read

Several character arcs woven ingeniously together in the novel come together in a surprise ending. Listening to the book enhanced this story for me

Couldn't Get Through It

Interesting topic, but I didn't like the narrative performance of one of the characters & the pace of the plot revelations was too slow for me. I didn't finish it, unusual for me.

Commits the very crime it condemns

Although The Last Confessions of Sylvia P is well-written in just about every way I can think of—excellent prose style, plotting and character development—I ultimately was disappointed by the fact that it does what it’s heroine decides not to do, which is to exploit the life of Plath and her work for personal gain. If you want to read a great book about Plath, read Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark. Aside from the above, for me the worst part of Kravetz’s book is the suggestion made innumerable times that it was Ted Hughes’ infidelity that ultimately led Plath to suicide. That may have played a part, but as The Red Comet makes clear, it was a lot more complicated than that.

Horrible

If you are a Plath or Lowell fan don't go here. one narrator so irritating and shrill I thought my ears would explode. Horrid story.