Told in prose poetry this short novel is based on the long standing affair between George Barker and Smart. If you are looking to go on an emotional rollercoaster then pick this up and have a read but be prepared to be wonderfully drained by the end.
March 2010 Guest Editor Susan Fletcher on By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept...
I'll never be able to say that I enjoyed this novel. But no other book has had such force to it, or stayed in mind for so long afterwards. It is a slim book - a novella, really - but it is packed with all the passion, fear and anguish that Smart felt during her long affair with the married poet George Barker. Her story is tragic and awesome. Their affair lasted for decades, and Smart bore Barker four children - but he never left his wife, who knew of the affair. Her language is extraordinary - too dense, in places, for me to understand, but there are also many lines or expressions which are unbearably tender, or which bite very hard. It is, in many ways, an exhausting read - but it makes this list for being so wild and emotionally charged. It's an unforgettable book.
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept Synopsis
Elizabeth Smart's passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, described by Angela Carter as 'Like Madame Bovary blasted by lightening … A masterpiece'.
One day, while browsing in a London bookshop, Elizabeth Smart chanced upon a slim volume of poetry by George Barker - and fell passionately in love with him through the printed word. Eventually they communicated directly and, as a result of Barker's impecunious circumstances, Elizabeth Smart flew both him and his wife from Japan, where he was teaching, to join her in the United States. Thus began one of the most extraordinary, intense and ultimately tragic love affairs of our time. They never married but Elizabeth bore George Barker four children and their relationship provided the impassioned inspiration for one of the most moving and immediate chronicles of a love affair ever written - By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.
Originally published in 1945, this remarkable book is now widely identified as a classic work of poetic prose which, more than six decades later, has retained all of its searing poignancy, beauty and power of impact.
