"Oh I DID want to be happy as a woman. But I'm a monster and must accept being one. Not all writers are monsters. But my kind is." Antonia White is best known for "Frost in May", for having come back from "Bedlam" hospital and madness, and for the public feud between her daughters over the editing of her diaries. This biography aims to tell the complete story of a life courageously lived against the most difficult odds. This is the story of a woman who - two generations too soon - attempted to live the modern female life of single parent and working mother, but longed for the artistic and intellectual stage. Antonia White wrestled throughout with the large questions of faith, the attractions and repulsions of Catholicism, the problems of being a woman and an artist. And over it all hovered the threat of madness. This book reveals her as a woman unafraid of extreme experience and honest enough to accept the consequences: self-obsessed, funny, fascinating and tragic - and ultimately heroic.

Author Biography

Jane Dunn is the author of MOON IN ECLIPSE: A LIFE OF MARY SHELLEY and A VERY CLOSE CONSPIRACY: VANESSA BELL AND VIRGINIA WOOLF. She lives in bath.