Linda Sexton

American writer and editor who has written of a period during her teen years in which she rejected the incestuous advances of her mother, famous poet Anne Sexton. Linda Sexton co-edited "Anne Sexton: a Self-Portrait in Letters," 1977 and edited "A. Sexton, Words for Doctor Y," 1978. Her autobiographical work, "Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton," was published in 1994. Sexton is the author of the novels "Rituals," 1981, "Mirror Images" 1984, "Points of Light," 1988 and "Private Acts," 1991. She is also the author of a short story, "Pick a Dick" in the Dick for a Day anthology of 1997, and has written story lines for the television soap opera, "The Guiding Light." She lives on the U.S. West Coast with her husband John Freund, a businessman whom she married 8/19/1979) and their children, Alexander and Nicholas. Linda Sexton was twenty-one when her mother killed herself, and at age 45, almost the same age Anne was when she died, she looked back and tried to come to terms with the roller coaster ride that was life with her mother. In fits of rage, the brilliant and unstable Anne Sexton would abuse her daughters, choking and slapping and throwing them across the room. Linda wrote that when she was in her teens, her mother sexually abused her. "Searching for Mercy Street" speaks to everyone who admires Anne Sexton and to every daughter or son who knows the pain of a flawed childhood. Link to Wikipedia biography