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Three Martin Afternoons at the Ritz
Gail Crowther
June 2, 2021
Gallery Books

Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz is like being a fly on the wall, or sitting at a table nearby eavesdropping to two women chatting each week over Martinis about their lives, their feelings, and the absolute dread they had of their competition of doing the same thing for a living because these two women were Ann Sexton and Sylvia Plath confessional poetesses.

I enjoyed Three- Martin Afternoons at the Ritz, I'm not sure that's the right word, because there was a lot of sadness in this book, Gail Crowther's novel about Plath and Sexton. I learned a lot. I gained an understanding and empathy for what they both went through, how just like any other friendship they had highs and lows, love and hate.

The writing was companionable, confiding-chatter, and classic storytelling at its best.

My first experience, like many other readers, with Sylvia Plath would be her only book, some would say, biography The Bell Jar. It actually propelled me to read The Barbizon by Paulina Bren, the real setting for Plath's hotel Amazon. Her husband Ted Hughes was also a favorite poet of mine.

I only read one poem by Anne Sexton, "Her Kind" so Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz was eye-opening to me of her life and her works.

It was fascinating that both Plath and Sexton died of Carbon Dioxide. It's similar to me like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dying on the same day within hours of each other.

Mental Health is tragic, this book shows that, however, it also shows how flawed diagnoses were back in their lifetimes and the extent that the illnesses were treated. Terror is what I felt reading about each woman's treatment.

The intense parallel mental illness where they were both hospitalized, the poetry, and the support they gave each other makes this book a much-read novel.