In this journal and the ones that followed, Sarton wrestled in real time, so to speak, with what it meant to bring her full self to the job of being a writer, including her sexuality, the ebb and flow of a lifelong depression often expressed as rage, the sometimes prickly relationship she had with critics and with other writers, the competing needs for solitude and for society, and the legacy imprinted on her by her parents.
She also published 13 books of non-fiction, including several public journals, starting with 1973’s J ournal of a Solitude. Over the course of a decades-long career, Sarton published 17 books of poetry and 20 novels, along with a play and two books for children. She had originally left home (Cambridge, Massachusetts) to work with noted actress Eva de Galienne, but after a few significant setbacks, including the dissolution of first Galienne’s and then later Sarton’s own theater companies, the young Belgian-born writer turned to writing. This is a beautiful book, wise and warm within its solitude.May Sarton, a 1967 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, had planned to be an actress. On the surface, Journal of a Solitude is a quiet book, but if you will read it carefully you will be aware of violent needs and a valiant warrior who has battled every inch of the way to a share of serenity.
It is an honorable confession of the writer's faults, fears, sadness, and disappointments. This journal is not only rich in the love of nature and the love of solitude. In this book, we are closer to the marrow than ever before in May Sarton's writing. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there."
There is violence there and anger never resolved. That is what is strange-that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened." In this journal, she says, "I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths, to the matrix itself. ".-Cleveland Plain Dealer.īook Synopsis "I am here alone for the first time in weeks," May Sarton begins this book, "to take up my 'real' life again at last. "An honorable confession of the writer's faults, fears, sadnesses, and disappointments. About the Book May Sarton writes with keen observation of both inner and outer worlds-a garden, the seasons, daily life in New Hampshire, books, people, ideas-and throughout everything, her spiritual and artistic journey.
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