Red Comet

For the fictional character, see Char Aznable. For the former airline based in Madrid, Spain, see Air Comet.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath is a 2020 book by Heather Clark that examines Sylvia Plath.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Author	Heather Clark
Language	English
Subject	Sylvia Plath
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	October 27, 2020
Pages	1152
ISBN	978-0-307-96116-7

Reception

According to Book Marks, the book received a "rave" consensus, based on twenty reviews: thirteen "rave", four "positive", and three "mixed".^[1] In Books in the Media, the book was scored 3.80 out of 5 stars, based on five critic reviews.^[2] In the January/February 2021 issue of Bookmarks, the book was scored three and a half out of five stars. The magazine's critical summary reads: "But as O, The Oprah Magazine concludes, "Red Comet achieves the remarkable: It's a majestic tome with the narrative propulsion of a thriller".^[3]

It was selected for the New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2021" list^[4] and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.^[5] It won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2022.