Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing Author:May Sarton May Sarton's ninth novel explores what it means to be a woman and a writer, to have chosen, perhaps, to be lonely. Dealing with the question of the sources of a woman's creative impulse, it has struck a responsive chord in an increasing number of readers. — The complexity of human love in its many guises also is Miss Sarton's concern.... more » When the book opens, Hilary Stevens, a formidable personality and a poet of reknown, is in her seventies. This singularly uncompromising heroine becomes the quarry of two young reporters from a national magazine whose assignment is to uncover the provenance of Hilary Stevens' poetic inspiration. In the course of their afternoon interview Hilary comes to terms with her own past as it has crystallized in a series of encounters with the Muse.
Miss Sarton defines this book as a "picaresque novel in which all the adventures are inward." It is a novel about love and the sources of poetic imagination. Through the protagonist's keen eyes, we also confront that fear of feeling which dominates our American ethos, and we are made aware of the crippling effect this fear may have on the young.
"We have to dare to be ourselves," Miss Sarton's heroine says, "however frightening or strange that self may prove to be." In this challenging book imagination if the pivot, and the courage to be oneself is the fertilizing theme.« less