Plath was nearly a household name by 1971, there were Plath groupies, and the women’s movement was in full bloom, with recent books from Germaine Greer and Robin Morgan. Confessional literature was in vogue. And there was a new fascination with death; Elisabeth Kübler-Ross had burst on the scene and Erich Segal’s tearjerker, Love Story, seemed to have a permanent place on the bestseller list. Depression and mental illness were subjects much on people’s minds as well; they were reading R. D. Laing. A. Alvarez, the critic who so admired Plath, had written a highly romantic book about suicide
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