From Today's New York Times
US
"A New Chapter of Grief in Plath-Hughes Legacy"
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: April 12, 2009
The news of the suicide of Sylvia Plath’s son, Nicholas Hughes, has cut through two distant and disconnected worlds in vastly different ways. (Read Full Article)
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Coincidently, I had just been discussing Sylvia Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes with a friend earlier this week. News of Nicholas's suicide, set against the backdrop of his mother's legacy, stirs up thoughts of Spalding Gray's passage into 'that good night' in 2004. It's not that I think their mothers' suicides brought on or informed their own, at least not directly. But I don't see them as being entirely separate either. The simple fact that each took their life--mother, then son--creates an immediate correspondence: the son's suicide inadvertently reflects his mother's, thereby throwing our gaze back onto the past, just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, indirectly, upon the face of the earth, and in so doing allows the solar principle to reveal itself to us once again, anew.
--AM
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"The monster, now in a box, who...'looked me right in the eyes and said, How shall I do it, dear? How shall I do it? Shall I do it in the garage with the car?'..." (Monster In a Box, Spalding Gray)
--AM
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"The monster, now in a box, who...'looked me right in the eyes and said, How shall I do it, dear? How shall I do it? Shall I do it in the garage with the car?'..." (Monster In a Box, Spalding Gray)
2 COMMENTS:
That was compelling read AM given that he's the son of Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath. That depression is so endemic in our society is utter tragedy. Thankfully I remain averse to the condition, most of the time.
Did Spalding suicide?? He was on painkillers I think for a long while and his body was found floating on the river. My colleague at work saw him perform a one man show in NY some years ago and said he was just amazing.
Yes, Spalding jumped from the Staten Island Ferry. You are also right about the pain killers--prescribed for his debilitating injuries resulting from a car crash a couple years prior. An obit in The Times Online reads "He had a history of depression, which intensified after he suffered serious head injuries in a car crash in Ireland in 2001. So his family and friends feared the worst when he disappeared in January, particularly after the last sightings placed him on the Staten Island ferry. His body was recovered from New York’s East River on Sunday."
According to other accounts I've read, it wasn't just the depression, it was also the pain and loss of quality of life.
I never had the pleasure of seeing him live, but have had other indirect run-ins with him, so to speak, by way of a voicemail left on my answring machine once by a jealous girlfriend of his. By the tone of the voice, I imagined it was his long-time partner, Renee, the woman he was with before meeting his wife.
Anyhoo, rambling. If you haven't read Impossible Vacation, I highly recommend it! :)
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