Jean Stafford burst on the literary scene in 1944, when, at the age of twenty-nine, she published her bestselling novel,Boston Adventure. Three years later,Lifemagazine hailed her as the "most brilliant of the new fiction writers." Bafflingly, for the rest of her life, Stafford would struggle--and fail--to capitalize on that early promise. David Roberts' compelling biography examines Stafford's disastrous marriages, including her first marriage to the volatile poet Robert Lowell, which culminated for her in a lengthy stay in a psychiatric hospital. Beautiful and gifted, Stafford squandered her health as well as her talent, ending her life embittered and alone.