Stronger than Death: Hart Crane's Last Year in Mexico
Jul 2023 · Hachette UK
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
320
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
'Poignant and fiercely intelligent, this is the best work of creative non-fiction I have read in years' FIONA MOZLEY
'Profound, moving and courageous' IRISH TIMES
'Stimulating and often engaging . . . Bratton has developed a real technique of her own here' TLS
In April 1931, modernist poet Hart Crane arrived in Mexico City. Between mood swings, dire financial difficulties, and a rotating series of personal estrangements, Hart was struggling to make the parts of a fragmentary world cohere. This move to Mexico was one in a long list of attempts to find security. In just over a year he would be dead.
In July 1932, Grace Crane picks up the morning paper. Scanning the headlines, she is halted on page five. Her son's eyes stare back at her, tinted pink by the thin paper: 'POET LOST AT SEA FROM SHIP'.
Hart Crane's death has accrued a morbid mythology, often overshadowing discussions of his work. In Stronger than Death Francesca Bratton focuses instead on Hart's vivid life and his turbulent final year among the vibrant artistic and political communities of Mexico City. Interwoven with Hart's story is that of his mother, exploring Grace's lifelong frustrated creativity and, after his death, her attempts to reach him through seance. Finally, the book explores Hart's legacy as a queer man and as a poet, informed by Francesca's responses to his work during her own periods of mental illness.
Part-memoir, part-biography, Stronger than Death is a profound and lyrical meditation on grief, mental health, enduring love and the power of poetry.
'Profound, moving and courageous' IRISH TIMES
'Stimulating and often engaging . . . Bratton has developed a real technique of her own here' TLS
In April 1931, modernist poet Hart Crane arrived in Mexico City. Between mood swings, dire financial difficulties, and a rotating series of personal estrangements, Hart was struggling to make the parts of a fragmentary world cohere. This move to Mexico was one in a long list of attempts to find security. In just over a year he would be dead.
In July 1932, Grace Crane picks up the morning paper. Scanning the headlines, she is halted on page five. Her son's eyes stare back at her, tinted pink by the thin paper: 'POET LOST AT SEA FROM SHIP'.
Hart Crane's death has accrued a morbid mythology, often overshadowing discussions of his work. In Stronger than Death Francesca Bratton focuses instead on Hart's vivid life and his turbulent final year among the vibrant artistic and political communities of Mexico City. Interwoven with Hart's story is that of his mother, exploring Grace's lifelong frustrated creativity and, after his death, her attempts to reach him through seance. Finally, the book explores Hart's legacy as a queer man and as a poet, informed by Francesca's responses to his work during her own periods of mental illness.
Part-memoir, part-biography, Stronger than Death is a profound and lyrical meditation on grief, mental health, enduring love and the power of poetry.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
About the author
Francesca Bratton is a writer, critic, poet and researcher at the Department of English at the University of Maynooth. Her academic monograph, Visionary Company: Hart Crane and Modernist Magazines was published by Edinburgh University Press (June 2021). She has previously taught at Durham University, where she studied for a doctorate on Hart Crane, and she is a graduate of St John's College, Oxford and UCL. Francesca has lived in Paris, worked as a bookseller and as a librarian. In 2022 she was awarded the Irish Arts Council Next Generation Award in Literature.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
