SIMPSON, Eileen (Patricia) B(erryman) 1918-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born 1918 in New York, NY; died October 21, 2002, in New York, NY. Psychotherapist and author. Simpson, the former wife of poet John Berryman, was a noted memoirist and novelist who wrote poignantly of her troubled life. She was orphaned at the age of two and spent her childhood struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia. Despite this disability, she graduated from Hunter College and earned an M.A. in psychology from New York University. She married Berryman in 1942, but the two had a rocky marriage because of his abuse and repeated infidelities; she divorced him in 1956. She worked as a psychotherapist until 1960, when she married a second time and moved to Paris. Not licensed to practice in France, she decided to try her hand at writing (she had overcome her dyslexia thanks to Berryman, who properly diagnosed her condition). Her first book was the novel The Maze (1975), which was based on her life. This was followed by four nonfiction books, Reversals: A Personal Account of Victory over Dyslexia (1979), Poets in Their Youth: A Memoir (1982), in which she reveals a great deal about Berryman and his poet friends, including Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, and Delmore Schwartz, Orphans: Real and Imaginary (1987), and Late Love: A Celebration of Marriage after Fifty (1994).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

Independent (London, England), November 22, 2002, p. 22.

New York Times, October 24, 2002, p. C14.