Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

May Sartons ninth novel explores a womans struggle to reconcile the claims of life and art to transmute passion and pain into poetry. As it opens Hilary Stevens a renowned poet in her seventies is talking with Mar an intense young man who has sought her out and whose passionate despair reminds her of herself when young. Mar has had an unhappy love affair with a man. Bewildered by both his sexuality and his writing talent he flings his anguish against Hilarys brusque sympathetic intelligence.