Linda Gray Sexton
An Essay Published on Meg Waite Clayton’s Blog My guest author today is my friend and fellow Bay Area writer Linda Gray Sexton, whose Bespotted: My Family’s Love Affair with Thirty-Eight Dalmatians is just out. Linda’s previous books include Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year which…
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How many of us have had what is called a “heart dog?” Tons of those reading this, I suspect. If you have finished, or are in the middle of, Bespotted, you will have discovered the inimitable Gulliver, to whom I dedicate the book as “dog of my heart,” which means the same thing. Some of…
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In today’s newsletter and also here on the blog, it is Cody who comes to greet our readers–wagging his tail until it is nothing but a blur, and grinning his crinkly Dalmatian smile. He is the first dog in our household, but not the last, who stayed on when he was not meant to. Born…
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As I promised you in my last newsletter, today you will meet one of my Dalmatians. I have chosen to tell you an anecdote about Mac, our youngest, as he is the “cover dog” for Bespotted. You can watch Mac as he grows up in the photos below this blog. Mac was born into a litter of…
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“Bespotted is a brave and wonderful book. The first chapter about the origin of the famous poem by Anne Sexton, “Live,” is precious both for the history it recounts with an authenticity nobody else could claim, as well as for its insight into one of the great poems of the language (hint: it is a poem made…
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WEEOOWW! Another book on the shelves! Can’t quite believe it. Number nine is lighter and more fun and filled with laughter and joy than the others, as remembering takes me back to a wonderful time of my life, and then right up to the present, surrounded by these magical beings who live with and love…
Read MoreDalmatian Club of America Spotter, Summer Issue 2010 I had promised Gulliver that when his time came I would not let him be in pain and that I would be there to hold him in my arms and rock him out. A week ago, I kept those promises. I had bred Gulliver’s litter, and he slid out…
Read MoreNew York Times, 4.2.2010 I have been crying for Nicholas Hughes. I never met Nicholas, yet I believe I know a great deal about him. He was the second child of the poet Sylvia Plath, who gassed herself in her oven when he was toddler. I am the elder daughter of the poet Anne Sexton,…
Read MoreRandom House/Villard, 1997 Nineteen fifty-nine: I’m six years old, sitting cross-legged on the rough brown rug in front of the black-and-white television set in my parents’ bedroom, entertaining myself with Queen for a Day, a game show, where powdered and permed housewives in flowered print dresses compete to be crowned. Each contestant pitches a lugubrious tale to…
Read MoreCounterpoint Press, 2011; originally published by Little, Brown, 1994 INTRODUCTION Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton began as a letter to my mother, a personal message of mourning and celebration that meditated on our complicated life together. She had died in 1975, during my twenty-first year, by committing suicide. I…
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