Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (P.S.)

In Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (HarperCollins, 16 April 2013), Elizabeth Winder has approached a pivotal period of Sylvia Plath's life in a novel way. Similar to the ingenuity in scope of Andrew Wilson's recent biography Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted, Winder writes primarily on a snapshot period of Plath's life and weaves together a short, quirky narrative based on archival research, information obtained from books, and new interviews with Plath's fellow guest editors.I was curious how one would write a 265-page biography based on one month/one summer of Plath's life. October 1962, I could see: there is a fair amount of information about this period and certainly enough creative work to really bring that aspect in as well. But, June 1953 there is less material available: very few letters, sparse journal-writing, no creative writing (other than possibly copy Plath wrote for the Mademoiselle issue). The bulk of the book is structured week-by-week (First Week, Second Week, etc.), which is a brilliant way to approach the events; and within each chapter there are sections which break down quite nicely into manageable, readable bits of writing.There are additional chapters too, that widen the context from just Sylvia Plath in June 1953 such as "Sylvia Before," "The Issue," and "Aftermath" to name a few. "Sylvia Before" is one of the more successful chapters of the book: in particular the sub-content in this chapter such as "Field Trip" (and the sub-sub content "Vitals") and - the best of them all - "A Dictionary of Adolescence." This is Pain, Parties, Work is at its best. The chapter "The Issue" is a short, intense look at the the August 1953 Mademoiselle: and bravo to Winder for such an examination. Salient details were also to be found in "Aftermath." Scattered throughout each chapters are boxes of quotes, memories, and other information. These sidebars contain contextual, supporting information, quotes and other information, but occasionally disrupt the flow of the text. As such, I was never quite sure whether to read the boxed off material in the flow of the narrative or as separate side-bars. There are many reasons to buy this book, not the least of them being for the perspectives of, Sylvia Plath, Mademoiselle, and 1950s style, fashion, and culture that her survivors give, as well as the snippets of new information.A natural way to approach this book is from the lens of Plath's portrayal of these events in her novel The Bell Jar. Reading Pain, Parties, Work will require a significant wiping clean of preconceived ideas about what you think you know about some of the people and events from those 26 days in June that Plath manipulated for her book. Certainly some of what Pain, Parties, Work reveals about Sylvia Plath's "queer, sultry" month is mind-blowing. The most important scene to me was the event at the Forest Hills Tennis Club (now the West Side Tennis Club) in Queens. An absolute revelation. Like Plath's novel, Winder freely intertwines significant experiences from other years of Plath's life into the text. In The Bell Jar, we are drawn to Esther Greenwood's story of isolation and disappointment and depression and the inequality and double standards of 1950s America. Likewise and more importantly, we are also drawn to Sylvia Plath's experiences and emotions from the time. Esther Greenwood tells us in the opening chapter of The Bell Jar that she was "supposed to be having the time of her life" (The Bell Jar, 1963, 2).What Winder has done in Pain, Parties, Work is to show that as Plath's fellow guest editors "shared their memories of June 1953, I realized that the difficulties Sylvia endured were not unique, but part of a larger crisis--being an ambitious, curious girl in the 1950s" (Author's Note xi). It goes to show that living the dream has consequences and that feeling of emptiness and of "moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo" was not restricted to just Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar, 3). About the end of the internships, Guest Editor Laurie Glazer says it best: "We dispersed in different directions to have our letdown alone" (Winder 221). And this is part of the power of both Plath's story and of The Bell Jar: that there is a universality to it to which people connect with on what seems to be a molecular level.Winder did her research, particularly with the fashions that were out that June, as well as things lost to me such as lipstick color, bra-designs, perfumes and other - dare I say - feminine things that had a profound meaning and influence on the 1953 version Sylvia Plath. I appreciate having the information now. The images in the book, though grainy, are relevant, but based on some of the memories recalled, the opportunity to present fetish items like the bathrobe Plath traded to Janet Wagner (aka Betsy/Pollyanna Cowgirl) was passed up. And, do any of the Guest Editors that year still have either the plastic starfish sunglasses case or the book of Ernest Hemingway short stories given to those who suffered from ptomaine poisoning?To sum: Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 is an easily digested book with fascinating new facts and memories of Sylvia Plath.There is no excuse not to read Elizabeth's Winder's Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953. In addition to being available in print (which is the best medium) Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 is also available on Kindle.

In the summer of 1953, Sylvia Plath and several other college girls were chosen as guest editors for Mademoiselle Magazine, to work on the college issue.A month long frenzy of activities, from work in the bull pen, to photo shoots, to luncheons, and to a round of parties, would ultimately become a series of defining moments for the young women.Entering her senior year at Smith following that summer, Sylvia's plans to write her senior thesis on James Joyce came to a screeching halt when she found herself struggling with the readings, her comprehension seemingly gone.Self-confidence was at an all-time low when she attempted suicide, and subsequently spent time in a psychiatric hospital. But afterwards, in the Platinum Year of 1954, Sylvia seemed "golden" again, with her newly blonded hair and her revitalized attitude.In later years, Sylvia would plumb the depths to write about the "hottest summer of her life." Those experiences, fictionalized, would become the core of The Bell Jar."Sylvia's experiences in the city that summer ignited her already harsh eye. The Bell Jar burns with a merciless bathing-suit-in-the-dressing-room fluorescent light. But this same garish illumination can be fresh, perversely flattering in a truthful/trashy way--like a snapshot where the skin has too much shine on it and there are too many dark shadows and everyone looks like a deer in the headlights, caught in the moment of reliving some recent humiliation."The 1950s in America were a time before the big changes that would come. Before Betty Friedan's book illuminating "the problem that has no name." Before the protests and fervor of a generation discovering freedoms previously unexplored. I remember these times well. And the fashions of that summer of 1953 were some that I recall with distaste. The fabrics, the styles...they spoke of a hobbling of a woman's self as well as her physical being. Unattractive and binding, the subsequent decades could not come soon enough for those of us living then.One of Sylvia's friends during that summer, Neva Nelson, summed up their experiences: "We were all immature adolescents--products of the middle 1950s, pre-Pill, pre-Feminine Mystique--expected to do something extraordinary, but left with the ambiguity of the female role, with its stress on home and family." Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (P.S.)  is a time-out-of-time series of experiences that revealed the girlish Sylvia Plath, still self-confident, for the most part...still golden. A portrait of the young woman, encapsulated in this moment in time, the story elicits sadness for the lost girl and the life cut short.

Life opens up like an exotic flower in that torrid summer in New York. A promising author on the cusp of success. But it could all go wrong

exactly as described

I've read a lot of Sylvia Plath biographies and her time in New York is often given less attention so writers can skip to the part with Ted Hughes. Lots of interesting social context about the period and interviews with other guest editors, it seems a lot of original research was done rather than just raking through old stuff. An interesting and enjoyable read.