Writers Gone Wild

Book excerpt: Truth is stranger than fiction. If you've imagined famous writers to be desk-bound drudges, think again. Writers Gone Wild rips back the (book) covers and reveals the seamy underside of the writing life. Insightful, intriguing, and irresistibly addictive, Writers Gone Wild reveals such fascinating stories as: * The night Dashiell Hammett hired a Chinese prostitute to break up S. J. Perelman's marriage (and ran off with his wife). * Why Sylvia Plath bit Ted Hughes on the cheek. * Why Ernest Hemingway fought a book critic, a modernist poet, and his war correspondent/wife Martha Gellhorn (but not at the same time). * The near-fatal trip Katherine Anne Porter took while high on marijuana in Mexico. * Why women's breasts sent Percy Bysshe Shelley screaming from the room. * The day Virginia Woolf snuck onto a Royal Navy ship disguised as an Abyssinian prince. Pull up a chair, turn on good reading light, and discover what your favorite writers were up to while away from their desks. Sometimes, they make the wildest characters of all.