Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers

Why did a gifted writer like Sylvia Plath stumble into a marriage that drove her to suicide? Why did Hilda Doolittle want to marry Ezra Pound when she was attracted to women? Why did Simone De Beauvoir pimp for Jean-Paul Sartre? The story of each of these relationships between female writers and their male literary partners is far from straightforward, but each relationship provokes the same question: would these women have become the writers they did without the experience of their own particular literary relationship? Drawn from writers’ diaries, letters and journals, Between the Sheets explores nine famous literary liaisons of the twentieth century. Lesley McDowell examines the extent to which each woman was prepared to put artistic ambition before personal happiness, and how dependent on their male writing partners they felt themselves to be. She probes the consequences of the women’s co-dependence and reveals how in many instances, their partnerships liberated unspoken desires, encouraged artistic innovation, and even made literary reputations.Fascinating and revealing, Between the Sheets offers a glimpse into the emotional and artistic lives of these great writers, and those of the artists they chose to share their lives with.

Reviews of Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers

'McDowell, a literary journalist in Scotland, has culled incredibly juicy details. With so many affairs and broken hearts, the most surprising thing is that anything got written in the last 100 years' New York Times Book Review 'Formidably well-read … controversial and provocative' The Independent 'She raises important questions about how sexual choice relates to writer's work and how things have changed for women writers' Financial Times 'It is laudatory that McDowell has set herself against the tenor of much of the critical discourse on the price of female talent – overall this is a welcome addition to the lives of writers in love and lust' New Republic