The Suicide of Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton, a distinguished poet, killed herself in 1974. Sexton's poems, many of which deal with suicide, read together with a richly researched recent biography – enhanced by the biographer's access to tapes of Sexton's sessions with her psychiatrist and by a foreword by that psychiatrist – permit an unusual opportunity to understand the interrelationship of her illness, her treatment, and the meaning of suicide in her life.