Margaret Mead was one of my heroines when I was growing up. How fascinating to read this biography which is a blend of intellectual and up close and personal history of her. To have her husband, Gregory Bateson included is icing on the cake. Mary Catherine has done an extremely creditble job. For example, she writes, "Margaret always emphasized the importance of recording first impressions . . . for . . . the informed eye has its own blindness as it begins to take for granted things that were initially bizarre." As I read of Margaret's reaction to Mary Catherine's wedding -- that it must be a format that reflected Margaret and Gregory's place in the world, rather than just the personal joy and celebration of a daughter, I had to wonder if Mary Catherine ever connected the above passage to her own children. This daughter writes with a fairly clear eye about her parents. They are neither great untouchable icons, nor are they flawed little humans. I suspect she did a great deal of balancing in her own emotions to come up with the portraits she painted because, in truth, we have three portraits here, all interconnected and somehow, ongoing. Not a superficial book.