The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston, 1995-1960, from Robert Frost to Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath

“No one has attempted so knowing and evocative a description of this literary milieu. . . . Davidson’s approach is both novel and illuminating. He presents his authors individually [and as] a group, carefully tracing their relation to one another. . . . He is uniquely qualified to chronicle the complex story. He is the ultimate literary Boston insider—not only the longtime poetry editor for the Atlantic Montly but successively a key editor at three major publishing houses. The author of nine volumes of poetry, he knew all the major characters of his narrative personally. . . . [His book] provides a candid, first-hand account of the mid-century poetic revolution.” —Dana Gioia, Washington Post Book World

This extraordinary account, by a participant who knew them all, offers vivid reminiscences of Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, Stanley Kunitz, Sylvia Plath, Richard Wilbur, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, and many others who interacted with each other and shaped American poetry at mid-century.