Rating: 
Summary: A book as intoxicating as its subject
Review: A phenomenon when she burst onto the literary scene in the Twenties, Edna Millay, I believe, would herself be pleased with this phenomenal biography. I discovered Millay's poetry when I was in high school in Kansas in the Fifties, the Beatnik era, but in Kansas, I certainly knew no Beatniks. Millay became my muse, the poetic string connecting me to another world beyond the endless fields of corn and wheat. I visited her home in Greenwich Village, read all of her poetry, and can still quote long passages from memory.
Savage Beauty, a large book, does ample justice to the large personality of Millay, chronicling her life and lifestyle, both of which were 'unconventional,' in every sense of the word. Such was the impact of this genius, this 'force of nature,' that she willfully created her persona, in the process lifting herself and her dependent family out of poverty and onto the front pages.
The intensity of her poetic works is mirrored in the intensity with which she lived her life. Her short signature poem 'I burn my candle at both ends; it will not last the night. But ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light' became a slogan for an era - and even more, a definition of her own life, at the end of which she did, indeed, flame out in an excess of living.
Rating:
Summary: SAVAGELY BEAUTIFUL
Review: As an author with my debut novel in its initial release, I was fascinated with Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. SAVAGE BEAUTY is a groundbreaking book about a groundbreaking woman. Ms. Milford tells the story of Ms. Millay's life from her youth as a most promising young writer to her unfortunate tragic death. Without pulling many punches, Ms. Milford presents Ms. Millay at the height of her fame--when she was queen of the American literary world. It discusses her nontraditional lifestyle and her freewheeling sexual adventures. SAVAGE BEAUTY is a great book--well written and accurate. Read it soon. You will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: A Shooting Star
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay was as famous and notorious in the 1920s as certain rock stars are today, though I would never have known her name had I not consciously chosen to explore American 20th century poetry. Nancy Milford offers a glimpse into the life of this shooting star based on exclusive access to the personal papers and letters under the care of Norma Millay, the poet's sister.
SAVAGE BEAUTY is a compelling biography of a colorful and intriguing poet, though it treads only lightly on the poetry side. This is not necessarily a problem since the character of Edna Millay is engaging enough. Notoriously promiscuous and a commanding presence in front of a crowd, Edna Millay also had a complicated private life beginning with her odd upbringing of near abandonment. Milford is able to brilliantly relate the personal story of the girl to the public persona she transformed into as the number one poet in America. Both public and private facets of her life are well covered in this volume.
For an enjoyable read and a glimpse into American life during the 1920s, I strongly recommend this excellent biography.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
Rating:
Summary: don't want it (or her) to end
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay, long my favorite poet, lived a fascinating, wild and even shocking life. Learning the truth about her may disturb some people, but I was happy to learn the details, sordid and exemplary. Nancy Milford writes engagingly and her biography of "Vincent" became for this reader quite a page-turner. The author's use of correspondence to and from Millay, and about Millay, reveals the character of this jazz-age poet with a sense of immediacy and freshness. (In that sense, this biography has a great deal in common with David McCullough's current best-selling and very engaging biography of John Adams.)Millay drank, was dependent on prescription pain killers, was promiscuous, and otherwise flouted the conventional morals of her time. She also wrote exquisite poetry and expressed not only beauty of spirit and self, but from time to time high-mindedness -- for example, in trying to evoke the national conscious during America's isolationist response to the rise of fascism in Europe. This biography is worth reading, as is Millay's poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and informative
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay, long my favorite poet, lived a fascinating, wild and even shocking life. Learning the truth about her may disturb some people, but I was happy to learn the details, sordid and exemplary. Nancy Milford writes engagingly and her biography of "Vincent" became for this reader quite a page-turner. The author's use of correspondence to and from Millay, and about Millay, reveals the character of this jazz-age poet with a sense of immediacy and freshness. (In that sense, this biography has a great deal in common with David McCullough's current best-selling and very engaging biography of John Adams.) Millay drank, was dependent on prescription pain killers, was promiscuous, and otherwise flouted the conventional morals of her time. She also wrote exquisite poetry and expressed not only beauty of spirit and self, but from time to time high-mindedness -- for example, in trying to evoke the national conscious during America's isolationist response to the rise of fascism in Europe. This biography is worth reading, as is Millay's poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I had no idea Ms. Millay had led such a fascinating and tumultuous life. This is wonderfully written and not at all dry like you'd expect.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, beautiful Edna
Review: If you actually read this book, and devote all of your attention to it as you read, you will find it is totally, incredibly good. I'm reading it now and I'm partcularly fond of the letters from Edna to her mother and the letters from her husband to her. Plus her life was really quite amazing!!! This is one book I will be very sad to finish. The one problem for me was that the book was written with the help of Norma Millay, Vincent's sister, and I think she still withheld a lot of letters and photos and it's a shame we can't see it all. But don't worry, it's still an ecellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Sources, Poor Development
Review: It seems cruelly ironical that after 30 years of working on a biography of an obscure (to most Americans living today) poetess, Nancy Milford would have to compete with another biographer's book on the same subject, published within the same month. It is even more cruel that despite the fact that Daniel Epstein's biography of Mrs. Millay, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" was only 3 years in the making, it is much more of a definitive biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay than Milford's highly emotional and occasionally subjective portrait could ever hope to become. Bill Moyers wrote that in Milford's tome, "Millay lives! And she casts a spell over the reader as mesmerizing as her poetry..." This is true. The problem is that the only reason Millay casts a spell over the reader, is because this overly-long book is practically an edited version of her journals. I have no problem with lengthy biographies, but, quite surprisingly considering the amount of time she spent immersed in Millay's archives, Milford does not seem to have enough of a grasp of the story, to understand that a lot of details that she leaves in are absolutely unnecessary. She also does not understand that a lot of the occasionally frustratingly long excerpts quoted from Millay's journals, letters and notes could have easily been paraphrased and summarized, and that actual analysis would have been more welcome in its place. At times, I felt like I was wading through these documents myself, and had to decide which of them were important and which were not. As far as I know (and I'm a published biographer myself) that is for the author to do.
Furthermore, unlike Epstein, who expertly discusses Millay's place in the pantheon of America's greatest poets and debates the reasons for her subsequent banishment from the literary scene, Millay's biography never really moves out of the realm of the poetess' inner journey, rendering a highly charged and inherently incomplete portrait. Characters come in and out without explanation, Milford never explains Millay's amorous adventures with other women as being lesbian relationships and the reader is left to guess whether Milford's lack of explanation suggests that she believed these affairs were without consequence and unrevelatory about the poet's real sexuality. Were these affairs common at the time? Was her lesbianism or bisexuality an open secret to Millay's coterie? Is Eugen's constant use of the word "love" to describe his feelings for Millay's lovers possibly suggestive of a menage-a-trois? Time and again the reader is left with more questions than answers, and Milford herself constantly poses questions for the reader, in a let-the-reader decide stance that does not suggest much skill on the part of the biographer.
Personally, I felt lost half of the time as I devoured the highly readable book. Despite its shortcomings, and its inferiority in relation to Epstein's shorter yet more complete portrait of Edna Millay, Savage Beauty is a beautiful story of family, romance, literary genius and ultimately, descent into addiction and death. Nancy Milford's prose is as readable as Millay's poetry; it is her flawed build-up of the story, and lack of context for the reader, that makes it less than perfect.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing biography
Review: Nancy Mitford had the "inside scoop" as it were - she had access to Millay's papers, as well as access to Millay's only surviving sister, Norma. These two items make for a book that is a fascinating view of the great poet, Edna St Vincent Millay. Edna lived a life most of us can barely believe - lovers, prizes, fame, fortune - at a time when females weren't supposed to "want it all". M's Mitford focuses on M's Millay's relationship with her mother and feels this was the determining factor in M's Millay's life. M's Millay was, to a large extent, abandoned by her mother as her mother tried to provide for three girls. M's Millay, being the oldest, took on the mother role for herself. Her book is punctuated with interviews with Norma, pictures and musings about M's Millay. There can be a bit distracting, especially when you're interested in the events being described at the time. M's Mitford asserts that M's Millay was pregnant and her mother helped her to abort. Outside of a photograph, there doesn't seem to be a lot to support that assertion. I'd advise reading this book with Daniel Mark Epstein's "What My Lips Have Kissed". His viewpoint is that M's Millay's biggest influence onher life was her many loves. M's Mitford seems right in many respects, but Mr Epstein's poet background seems to work well for him in his view of M's Millay. Buy both books and read them consecutively - it will give you a more accurate picture of Edna St Vincent Millay.
Rating:
Summary: Cluttered Biography
Review: Savage Beauty was good, but filed with information that was too detailic and too sexual for my liking. Every one of Millay's love afairs- with men and women- are deeply discussed in Savage Beauty. The information about Vincent's poetic side was beautifully written. That is why I read it-- to learn about her poetry and her lifelong drama. I didn't read this to discover her sexual fantasies nor her sexual persuits. The chapters consisting of Vincent's and her girlfriends' relationships are disgusting and unneccessary. The book is good, just skip over the sexual chapters in order to avoid nausea. A different biography on Vincent might be better.
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