Jean Stafford: The Life of a Writer (Vermilion Books)

Jean Stafford burst on the literary scene in 1944 when at the age of twenty-nine she published her bestselling novel Boston Adventure. Three years later Life magazine hailed her as the most brilliant of the new fiction writers. Bafflingly for the rest of her life Stafford would struggle--and fail--to capitalize on that early promise.. David Roberts compelling biography examines Staffords disastrous marriages including her first marriage to the volatile poet Robert Lowell which culminated for her in a lengthy stay in a psychiatric hospital. Beautiful and gifted Stafford squandered her health as well as her talent ending her life embittered and alone.