Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

“The plot of this short novel is deceptively simple, the mood subtle, the feeling intense. And the music of Miss Sarton’s prose leaves compelling echoes in one’s mind.” —New York Times Book Review

May Sarton's ninth novel explores a woman's 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 remin...