Nicole Ward Jouve is a professor in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, England with a long-standing interest in feminist issues. Her growing concern with the psyche has taken her more and more into the area of psychoanalytic theory. While explorations in the field certainly add depth to her extensive knowledge of literature and feminism, Jouve writes like an intellectualizing academician and not an analyst. As a result, I found much of the book difficult to read.

The book is divided into an introduction, in which the balance of male and female in creativity is considered; and three sections: “In Father's Lack,” the imbalance in contemporary fatherhood; “Troublesome Mothers, and Creation,” what goes askew with