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Nini Herman's new book, Letters to the Living and the Dead, has left me in a dilemma as to how to approach it for review. This is an extraordinarily candid and personal book - and on the one hand I am full of admiration for Dr Herman's courage to be so forthright and self-analytical. On the other hand, I find myself questioning whether it is really appropriate that a practising clinician should be publishing such self-revealing material.
Briefly, the book consists of ten chapters: an introduction outlining the premise and motivation behind the writing of this book, which is followed by nine ‘letters’ addressed to individuals who have been significant figures in the author's life. The recipients include members of her own family: a male relation, her grandmother, and her parents, and three friends: Bessie Head, Adele Wiseman, and Michael Peto, all of whom are dead. The living recipients are her husband, the painter Josef Herman, and the writer Toni Morrison. The letters are written in a very spontaneous and unedited style - as if they were intended for the eyes of the addressee - and this adds to the