RIP Nicholas Hughes

The son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes killed himself today.

While it's easy to see this as the continuation of some literary saga/tragedy, it's also important to remember that depression, the clinical kind, is inherited. Here is coverage from Jacket Copy and the Guardian.

Though I love Plath's poems, particularly her later ones, and I liked The Bell Jar a lot, I've never been obsessed with their story mostly because it struck me as too much of a downer even for my morbid tastes.