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  • Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire

  • A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
  • Written by: Kay Redfield Jamison
  • Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
  • Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire

Written by: Kay Redfield Jamison
Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
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Publisher's Summary

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • In this magisterial study of the relationship between illness and art, the best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison, brings an entirely fresh understanding to the work and life of Robert Lowell (1917-1977), whose intense, complex, and personal verse left a lasting mark on the English language and changed the public discourse about private matters.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, Robert Lowell put his manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar disorder) into the public domain, creating a language for madness that was new and arresting. As Dr. Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell’s story, she illuminates not only the relationships among mania, depression, and creativity but also the details of Lowell’s treatment and how illness and treatment influenced the great work that he produced (and often became its subject). Lowell’s New England roots, early breakdowns, marriages to three eminent writers, friendships with other poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, his many hospitalizations, his vivid presence as both a teacher and a maker of poems—Jamison gives us the poet’s life through a lens that focuses our understanding of his intense discipline, courage, and commitment to his art. Jamison had unprecedented access to Lowell’s medical records, as well as to previously unpublished drafts and fragments of poems, and she is the first biographer to have spoken with his daughter, Harriet Lowell. With this new material and a psychologist’s deep insight, Jamison delivers a bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was—both despite and because of mental illness—a passionate, original observer of the human condition.

©2017 Kay Redfield Jamison (P)2017 Random House Audio

What the critics say

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, and The Times Literary Supplement

“Groundbreaking . . . A real contribution to the literary history of New England . . . A case study of what a person with an extraordinary will, an unwavering sense of vocation, and a huge talent . . . could and could not do about the fact that the defining feature of his gift was also the source of his suffering.” —Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

"Remarkable . . . Absorbing . . . Jamison approaches Lowell’s vexed life not only with scholarly authority but also with literary talent and confidence . . . One reads this biography—so full of incident—as one would read a novel, led by each page to the next, fearing and hoping as one follows the excruciating volatility of Lowell’s life and the unpredictable evolution of his art.” —Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books

What listeners say about Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire

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