Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, May Sarton. Carolyn G. Heilbrun. Norton, 1975.
Vintage paperback. Some light shelfwear. No markings inside. Very good condition.
May Sarton was a Belgian-American poet and novelist. Her best work is strongly personalized with erotic female imagery. She has written about sexual orientation, love of nature, gratitude, isolation, and the struggles of a creative life.
In Journal of a Solitude, May reveals the challenges surrounding the writing of Mrs. Stevens in 1965, the guts it took, the mission she had in mind:
“On the surface my work has not looked radical, but perhaps it will be seen eventually that in a “nice, quiet, noisy way” I have been trying to say radical things gently so that they may penetrate without shock. The fear of homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write Mrs. Stevens, to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive; to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor disgusting, without sentimentality; and to face the truth that such a life is rarely happy, a life where art must become the primary motivation, for love is never going to fulfill in the usual sense."