The Arms of the Infinite: Elizabeth Smart and George Barker

The Arms of the Infinite takes the reader inside the minds of author Christopher Barker’s parents, writer Elizabeth Smart (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept) and poet George Barker. From their first fateful meeting and subsequent elopement, Barker candidly reveals their obsessive, passionate, and volatile love affair.

He writes evocatively of his unconventional upbringing with his siblings in a shack in Ireland and, later, a rambling, falling-down house in Essex. Interesting a...