R.I.P. Nick Hughes
Thanks to Susan — who, like me, surely has a long memory with the Plath/Hughes family — for sending me the tragic news that Nicholas Hughes hanged himself. But let’s not dwell on the question of heredity or a gene for suicide; we’ll leave that to the other pundits. Instead, I like this bit from the Times online:
A family friend said last night: “Nick wasn’t just the baby son of Plath and Hughes and it would be wrong to think of him as some kind of inevitably tragic figure. He was a man who reached his mid-forties, an adventurous marine biologist with a distinguished academic career behind him and a host of friends and achievements in his own right. That is the man who is mourned by those who knew him.”
So his parentage, and any parallels, aren’t what matter now. Jeers to the Daily Kos, one of my favorite sites, for the headline “Like mother like son.” Tacky.
liz | 11:40 PM | Uncategorized
Ugh, what a terribly judgmental headline that is! Disappointed.
The Daily Kos site permits readers to post “diaries” that typically do not appear on the front page of the web site, and which are not edited or reviewed by the proprietors of that web site. That headline relates to a user’s diary entry.
aye yi yi. this is sad.
I’m usually fascinated with the heridity properties of mental illness, esp. bipolar, but on this one you’re absolutely right. The world lost Nicholas Hughs, not Sylvia Plath’s son. The same was true when Margaux Hemingway killed herself. Genetics & famously ill parents don’t diminish the loss of a single human being to suicide.
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