Phyllis Grosskurth found her vocation as a biographer relatively late in life. After spending years as a wife (her first husband was a naval officer) and as a mother, she went to graduate school and produced a book on the 19th-century critic John Addington Symonds. Remarkable for its frank treatment of Symonds’ homosexuality, the book won the 1964 Governor General’s Award.

Grosskurth followed this with well-received biographies of Havelock Ellis, Melanie Klein, Freud’s secret committee of disciples, and Lord Byron.

Her own memoir is peppered with gossip about prominent figures in Toronto’s burgeoning cultural life in the 1960s, when she was teaching at the University of Toronto and married to her second husband, actor/producer Mavor Moore. It reads like a letter from a dear but naive friend who is forever finding herself in a scrape. This may be useful in correcting our image of the eminent biographer, but Grosskurth’s purpose isn’t helped by her coyness: she describes her first husband’s infidelity as an “amatory episode,” and later writes that she and her husband were “no longer living as man and wife,” implying in a somewhat Victorian manner that they no longer engaged in sex. Examples such as these stand out, coming from a writer who prides herself on her frankness.

While growing up, Grosskurth was initially from a well-off family. Financial pressures caused friction between her parents. Her mother became increasingly unstable and abusive, driving her daughter into an unfulfilling marriage as a means of escape. Though Grosskurth’s adult life has been punctuated by depression, disappointing love affairs (she eventually found her soulmate), and bouts with breast cancer, Grosskurth’s achievements as a female academic, writer, and mother are considerable.

When Grosskurth discovered Melanie Klein, the leading figure in British psychoanalysis until her death in 1960, it was like finding the key to her own unhappiness – Klein’s theories focused on the role of the mother in the life of the infant. Grosskurth went on to write what she considered an admiring biography of Klein, published in 1986. She also uncovered evidence of Klein’s questionable clinical ethics, presenting her as a flawed individual who applied her own principles inconsistently. Consequently Klein’s loyal adherents denounced her. Still, Grosskurth managed to find a silver lining in what was otherwise a devastating experience, travelling widely on the lecture circuit, and gathering material for this engaging volume.