Book Description
Back Cover copy
A feminist classic, this is the story of a woman living in an era when dependence on the husband could force one to face literal starvation and poverty. Blackmailed by Leopold, who insisted that he could not write and earn their living unless she "cooperated," she was forced to play "sadistic" roles in his exotic sexual fantasies to ensure the survival of herself and her three children--games which called into serious question who was the Master and who was the Slave. Besides being a compelling study of a woman's search for her own identity, strength and, ultimately, complete independence, this is a true-life adventure story--an odyssey through many lands people by amazing characters, ranging from the famous (Ludwig II;:Liszt) to the unsung great (the totally fearless adventuress-skeptic Catherine Strebinger). Underneath its unforgettable poetic imagery and almost unbearable emotional cataclysms reighns a woman's consistent unblinking investigation of the limits of morality and the deepest meaning of love.
