Part One: Chapter II Summary and Analysis

Author Janet Malcolm had attended the University of Michigan at the same time as Anne Stevenson. Anne was a year ahead of Janet and, as the daughter of a philosophy professor and an artsy, poetic non-conformist, she was greatly admired by Jane and her friends. Janet had started writing herself around that time but would have never compared herself to Anne, whose writing was considered to be in another stratosphere. Anne, who was always surrounded by attractive boys at school, eventually settled on an Englishman who she married and moved with to England. Anne went on to become a renowned poet whose career Janet followed throughout the years.

When Anne wrote the biography of Sylvia Plath, she found that she and Sylvia had gone through the same teenaged angst and sexual frustrations of the American...