Books and beyond

Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford

Savage Beauty chronicles the life of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Millay was a pianist, poet, sister, eldest daughter of a single mother in the early 1900s, brutally honest, bisexual, and a Pulitzer Prize winner.  Nancy Milford’s biography does not read like a tell-all account of Millay’s life.  Instead, Milford’s biography is a well-researched literary account of a fascinating, if not tragic, life.  Savage Beauty was chosen as one of the Best Books of 2001 by Library Journal.  Nancy Milford is also the author of Zelda, a biography about Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife.