For her debut novel, Helen Bain chose one of her heroes as her focus: poet, author, arch-confessionist and genius, Sylvia Plath. The Daffodil Days spans a year and a half in Plath’s life, during which she and husband Ted Hughes head to Devon seeking the idyll of country living. 

During that time, Plath completed The Bell Jar, gave birth to a son, Nicholas, and wrote the poems that would be posthumously published as Ariel. But she also threw herself full-heartedly into the Devon life, and it’s this and what it tells us about Plath, which Helen so beautifully explores in The Daffodil Days. 

She chats to Mick about Plath, female genius, daffodils, hope and bellringing.

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