Lover of Unreason by Yehuda Koren
Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s Rival and Ted Hughes’ Doomed Love is primarily about Assia Weville who’s probably the least interesting of the three people in this triangle. Ted Hughes, who drove them both to suicide, certainly comes off as a scrungy character. I wouldn’t want to be him. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t have access to his side of things so you only know that Assia was miserable, not particularly what he did to cause it.
The evidence presented doesn’t amount to much. He slept with her for a while, maybe fathered a child (the assumption is that Shura is his but there’s no evidence presented for that either), and later lost interest. Sounds like he cheated on her repeatedly, but since she got him while he was cheating on his wife, that shouldn’t have surprised her.
All in all, I couldn’t feel sorry for Assia. She didn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities despite thinking a lot of herself. She should have dumped Ted, grown up, and found a reason to be proud of herself that didn’t require a man.