A Writer's Ruminations

"Of the many mysteries attending Plath (for example, whether or not she’d meant to kill herself — she’d stuck her head in the oven, true, but had left a note for her neighbor instructing him to ‘call Dr. Horder,’ a note she possibly expected him to find in time to save her), this was the one that most fascinated me — no matter how many photographs I’d seen of her, I had no idea what she looked like. Each new photograph undermined the believability of the others, as though she’d been, even while alive, unwilling to commit to her own face."

— Heidi Julavits, The Vanishers