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Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay | 
| Author: Nancy Milford
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 278285
Media: Paperback
Pages: 608
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0375760814
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.52
EAN: 9780375760815
ASIN: 0375760814
Publication Date: September 10, 2002
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Amazon.com Review
Fans of Zelda, Nancy Milford's groundbreaking (and bestselling) biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald's tortured wife and muse, have been waiting impatiently since 1970 for Milford's promised follow-up about poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). It's finally here, and they will not be disappointed. Milford's vivid narrative limns an electric personality with psychological acuity while capturing the freewheeling atmosphere of America in the turbulent years following World War I. After "Renascence" was published (when she was only 20) and she moved to Greenwich Village, Millay was the queen of bohemia, taking lovers with zest and voicing the reckless gaiety of a generation in her famous lyric, "My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends-- / It gives a lovely light." With her flame-red hair, milk-white skin, and a voice that thrilled audiences (making her poetry readings a welcome source of income), Millay was the archetypal "new woman": powerful, passionate, and not to be ignored. But Milford makes it clear that her first loyalty was to her mother and sisters, and her deepest commitment to her writing. This juicy chronicle has famous names aplenty--critic Edmund Wilson and Masses editor Floyd Dell were among the men devastated by her refusal to be faithful--and lots of dissipation: Millay drank heavily and became addicted to morphine. It also takes a perceptive look at how an artist draws material from her life and at the strategies she uses to protect the wellsprings of creativity. Brief passages interspersed throughout delineating Milford's interactions with Norma Millay, the poet's younger sister and literary executor, might have been self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing; instead they offer intriguing snapshots of the complex process by which biography is made. The resulting book is a tour de force, and wildly entertaining as well. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.
Thirty years after her landmark biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, Nancy Milford returns with an iconic portrait of this passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself. Chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year, Savage Beauty is a triumph in the art of biography. Millay was an American original—one of those rare characters, like Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway, whose lives were even more dramatic than their art.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 Intriging, sad, very well done June 10, 2008
Frances Haas
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was engulfed by the book in a profound sense. I like how Milford allows the reader to see exactly what the "players" wrote themselves. I don't like having things spelled out. Her method allows you to evaluate not only Mallay, but her siblings and mother, husband.
The only reason Norma is so highlighted is that she gave over her own intention (probably not very strong) to write about her sister's life herself by letting Milford have all the papers. And Norma was, at the time, the only one left in the family.
I came to some conclusions from the gathered details. It was a tale of women without men through the generations. I felt more sympathy for the mother, Cora, than for Millay herself. Cora's disire to be an established poet was completely thwarted, but she passed it on (or infected) her daughters with an overwhelmning desire for attention and recognition. Millay was the one chosen (or self-chosen) to carry on the literary hopes of the female line. She was cossetted and extolled, her mother and siblings made sure to elaborate her sense of destiny as privelged treatment. But the story isn't that simple either. Millay had a long lonely period in High School where she created an imaginary boyfriend whom she would regale with her stories, and she served him as a perfect wife, this boyfriend. It wasn't hard to see that she was longing for the return of the exiled father. The pitiful letters he would send, never able to send any money, the various excuses, would not make it easy for her to trust relationship in general.
There is so much to this book. So many odd turns of fate. It was Norma who was directly responsible for Edna getting into Vassar. Norma was working for a hotel and insisted Edna come to a party there, where Edna read her poem: Rennaisance. A wealthy woman heard her and decided to pay her way to Vassar. This would not have happened without Norma.
The Vassar years served to further deform Millay's sense of herself as special because she was older and more experienced than her peers. The other girls followed Millay around, lavished their love-lorn wishes on her and Millary developed a fine-tuned ability to manipulate and be the love-object without herself being moved. This did not work out as intended, but a reader can see many layers in this book, and draw many final conclusions from it.
I recommend it highly as a psychologically profound study of a complex family.
 Too heavy on the research to be a good read August 4, 2007
Elizabeth C. Jones (Chapel Hill, NC United States)
I was looking forward to this book, having enjoyed Milford's "Zelda" very much. But boy, you have to plow your way through seemingly every letter Millay ever wrote or received. Some details are relentlessly spelled out while other, more salient points don't get the attention they deserve. (What physical or mental problems were really at the root of her most serious breakdown? When, exactly, and why did her morphine addiction take root?) And I don't know what anyone else thought about it, but I felt Milford paid far, far too much attention to Millay's anatomy. It was off-putting to me. I also find it annoying when photographs are described in detail in the text but do not appear in the picture sections.
Edna St. Vincent Millay's life certainly mirrored that of her most famous poem, "First Fig"; she did burn the candle at both ends. Her personal life was largely a sad one, but she brought a lot of her personal woes upon herself. Better to read the poems. . . they remain fresh as ever, revealing and possessed of a remarkable clarity and gift for the turn of phrase.
Enlightening January 9, 2007
Daniel Lloyd (USA)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Surprised to find out she had a very active and interesting life. Would not know it by the writings she composed.
I loved this book. September 29, 2006
Donna Hemsworth (Staten Island, NY United States)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I picked this book up for the first time in a summer rental house. I couldn't put it down and I had to run out and buy my own copy when I got home. I was not familiar with Millay before reading this book, so I cannot compare it to the million other opinions of her, but as a narrative on its own I have been mesmerized. I think this is an extremely well written biography that captures the essence of the relationships we nuture and cherish. Everytime I pick it up again I slip effortlessly into a different place in time when one could simply be an artist, a genius, and be celebrated. The descriptions are vivid and the narrative is strong and engaging. It's simply a well written book and I loved it.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Subject of Nancy Milford (oh, and she was a poet, too) August 4, 2006
J. A. Marquardt (Hattiesburg, MS)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
In this biography, Milford seems to be an historian first and a writer second. Or, perhaps, a prima donna first, an historian second, and then a writer. There is nothing wrong with either order unless one's prerogative in reading happens to be pleasure. Then, dear reader, it seems you have been "punk'd."
While I reveled in the details of Millay's life there were a few I wish Milford would have omitted: the "dramatic natural beauty" of the New England where Millay grew up; the lack of transition between paragraphs; and, perhaps the most aggravating, Milford herself! While the author has undoubtedly waded through a great deal of documents and interviews, one feels she doesn't quite know what to do with them. Other reviewers have noted that Milford hasn't processed or analyzed much of the material, but simply dumps it on the reader to sort out. And I agree. Further, she parades Millay's surviving sister, Norma, about as a primary source. However, while Norma's reflections and recollections are used when convenient, she seems to serve largely as the vehicle for Milford to infiltrate her own subject's biography! Indeed, while Norma is portrayed as a loving and level-headed sister and human being in the text, the prologue paints her as fickle, selfish, and maniuplative while Milford is the one righteous and serene. Other scenes and dialogues involving Norma seem random until one realizes Milford is characterizing Norma or inserting herself (once, as the object of Norma's sexual advance. The vixen!) One is reminded of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson" which scholars joke ought to be renamed, "Samuel Johnson, Friend of James Boswell." If Milford could get out of her own way, this would likely be a very fine read. Truthfully, I did not dislike it. Not entirely. I only wish it were friendlier to those of us not preparing for assignments on great American poets. And an homage to Millay rather than to Milford.
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