{"product_id":"mary-ventura-and-the-ninth-kingdom-faber-stories","title":"Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: Faber Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003eLips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.0'But what is the ninth kingdom?' she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. 'It is the kingdom of the frozen will,' comes the reply. 'There is no going back.'0Sylvia Plath's strange, dark tale of independence over infanticide, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.00There is good reason to suppose that Plath would have wanted this work of fiction printed: she submitted it to Mademoiselle magazine in 1953, although it was rejected. The prose is not as radiant as in her 1963 novel, The Bell Jar, published 11 years later, but there is still plenty to admire: a masterly ratcheting up of tension over 40 pages; short, simple sentences that slip between the ribs. As the heroine, Mary, gradually realises that the destination the train is bound for (the Dantean ?ninth kingdom?) is probably not somewhere she?d like to end up, she shrugs off her wearying passivity and takes action.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/sylvia-plath-books\"\u003eSylvia Plath\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 48\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Faber \u0026amp; Faber\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780571351732\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £1.00","offer_id":47912251424945,"sku":"SB-0571351735-C3","price":1.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0571351735.jpg?v=1789162011","url":"https:\/\/sellbooks.co.uk\/products\/mary-ventura-and-the-ninth-kingdom-faber-stories","provider":"Sell Books .co.uk","version":"1.0","type":"link"}