Stronger than Death

'Poignant and fiercely intelligent, this is the best work of creative non-fiction I have read in years' FIONA MOZLEY 'Profound, moving and courageous' IRISH TIMES 'Stimulating and often engaging . . . Bratton has developed a real technique of her own here' TLS In April 1931, modernist poet Hart Crane arrived in Mexico City. Between mood swings, dire financial difficulties, and a rotating series of personal estrangements, Hart was struggling to make the parts of a fragmentary world cohere. This move to Mexico was one in a long list of attempts to find security. In just over a year he would be dead. In July 1932, Grace Crane picks up the morning paper. Scanning the headlines, she is halted on page five. Her son's eyes stare back at her, tinted pink by the thin paper: 'POET LOST AT SEA FROM SHIP'. Hart Crane's death has accrued a morbid mythology, often overshadowing discussions of his work. In Stronger than Death Francesca Bratton focuses instead on Hart's vivid life and his