In this evocative memoir, this granddaughter of a bootlegger tells the story of how she went out and got a life. Her father was a bus driver who died when she was four; her mother worked in a bar to support the kids. She did well in school and married a Protestant minister. From the parsonage, she went to the Playboy Mansion, where for many years she had a personal relationship with 60's guru Max Lerner. Through Max and others, she developed a friendship with DNA scientist, Francis Crick; a fascination for Henry Miller, Simone de Beauvoir and pioneers of the sexual revolution. A United Nations Conference took her to the Soviet Union, where she married a second time and founded Moscow Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. As a college professor. her research on playgrounds in troubled countries took her to Belfast, Tehran and Managua. Mary lives between California and Paris, where she created the Paris Writers Group. She is actively involved with the literary community and is writing a new book about love, literature and death on a Paris street.