An Influx of Poets

A Story

by Jean Stafford
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This was an amazing look into what it's like to live with someone with a mental illness. The fate of the cat and her kittens was hard to take (particularly Cora's inclusion of herself in the decision) but it was somehow an essential part of the nightmare ambiance woven here.

A compelling, compulsive self disclosure with lovely tart tastes, and thumbnail dismissals. I am far from sure it was not sanity that saw the bogus, the self-important, the self-delusions.

I could not stop before the end, and the fate of the cat and kittens seemed to epitomize the cruelty that prevailed under pretense.