Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted

By: Andrew Wilson

Narrated by: Anna Bentinck

Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's Summary

On 25 February 1956, 23-year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and spotted Ted Hughes, who she described as a 'big, dark, hunky boy'. Sylvia viewed Ted as something of a colossus, and to this day his enormous shadow has obscured Plath's life and work.

After her suicide in February 1963, Hughes became Plath's literary executor, the guardian of her writings. But he regarded Plath's prose writing as a 'waste product' of her 'false self', and his determination to market her later poetry - written after she had begun her relationship with him - as the crowning glory of her career has meant that her previous work has been marginalised.

Mad Girl's Love Song reclaims the years before Ted, drawing on exclusive interviews with friends and lovers, and previously unavailable archives and papers, to focus on the early life of the 20th century's most popular and enduring female poet.

©2013 Andrew Wilson (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Shoot this narrator!

This book is fine. But the narrator is terrible! She keeps trying (emphasis on TRY) to do American accents, each more irritating than the next. She seems to think every single American girl must sound like she's rolling her eyes and snapping gum while on her way to the galleria. She drawls and drops all her vowels and pouts her intonations until she sounds as if she's mocking and condescending to every poor person who's words were chosen to supplement the text.And she does it every. darn. time. You'll be knee deep in a passage about how people are recounting important moments of emotional development, a pivotal moment of change and suddenly here comes The Voice. It comes into these deeply significant moments and steps on every bit of research and build up the author spent time on, reducing it, stripping any significance it might have held, until every single person on the page seems as interesting as the unsticky side of a band aid.

Please Audible! Never hire this woman again! Everyone else - save your credit and just READ the book instead.

Couldn't finish due to narrator

I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to narration of a book I love. This topic is a favorite so I was eager to hear this book. The narrator, who has a beautiful British accent, tries exceedingly too hard to do Sylvia's American accent. It's almost funny if it wasn't so annoying - how long of a pause she takes before transforming even a three-worded Sylvia quote into a drawn-out, husky and smoky voice that sounds rather bored. I kept trying to get past it, but finally had to admit sad defeat.

Worst Narrator of all time, captivating story

This is a well written and intriguing account of the life of Sylvia Plath before Ted Hughes. The narrator however is almost unbearably awful. The weird, creepy, put-on voice that she uses for Sylvia sounds robotic. I almost couldn't get through it. But as a huge fan of Sylvia's writing talent, In spite of the fact that the Narrator is horrendous, I couldn't stop myself from continuing to listen.

Gorgeous!

An excellent text for any Plath lover, it details the rich love life of Plath before Ted Hughes. Great narration, great content. A must read. Five stars.

Well worth a listen

Really interesting and gives a more complete view of the writer’s life and personality as a child and student. Her sharp, perceptive comments in her diaries are clear beginnings of her poetry, both in content and language.

The book is essential reading, the audiobook bad

The story is wonderful knowledge. The audio editor chopped the readings together with an axe.

Sylvia Struggles with life

Very Informative, Gives the detail warts and all.Sylvia had the potential to be a fantastic poet , novelist but had inner demons , loved it