The author says in her introduction,"I spent the first 20 years of my life in Berkeley, California, in a beautiful home designed by my architect father in the hills overlooking all of San Francisco Bay and right next door to the University of California campus. I was dragged through every museum, cathedral, palace, architectural wonder and ruin in France, Italy and Germany. I was taken to concerts, plays, art exhibits, dance recitals and, occasionally, the San Francisco Zoo. I grew up being told that I was specially privileged to be part of a family like mine in a town as progressive as Berkeley - far ahead of the rest of the country. I could do or be anything I wanted to - preferably an M.D. or a PhD. - but I didn't quite live up to expectations.