Introduced at Robert Lowell's Boston University workshop, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton formed a friendship that would soon evolve into a fierce rivalry, colored by jealousy and respect in equal terms. With weekly martini meetings at the Ritz to discuss everything from sex to suicide, theirs was a relationship as complex and subversive as their poetry. In this LATimes Best Book of 2021, Gail Crowther traces how Sexton and Plath lead curiously parallel lives as unmistakably brilliant writers who were haunted by mental illness, self-doubt, and turbulent relationships.