This is not a book for anyone interested in Robert Lowell or his poetry. This is a maudlin account of one woman's inability to recognize or empathize with the inner life of her famous relative, and her valiant attempts to profit by her own shortcomings. In short, mere gossip. Eileen Simpson's "poets in Their Youth" is much more interesting, and Richard Tillinghast's "Robert Lowell's Life and Work" is far more insightful, for those who care about Lowell's poetry. But as for those who don't care about Lowell's poetry, well, all I can say is, why bother to read a book by someone whose only claim on your attention is that she's Lowell's distant cousin?

With fresh black humor and a no nonsense style, Sarah Payne Stuart has written a book of family suffering that gives a vivid understanding of the terrors and fall out of mental illness. She also describes with deft strokes what monsters people are, who lack imagination, and arrange to be insulated from pain by self-regard and a great deal of money.

Perhaps the most entertaining book that I have ever read. Sarah Payne Stuart makes me howl and a second later makes me thank God that I've got both oars in the water. God Bless You SPS.