What this ultimately proves to me - as if it needed any more proving - is how urgent and important it is to simply have more candidates and people in positions of power generally who are female and/or black and/or disabled etc etc etc. Until that happens anyone who happens to be one or more of these things will excite a tonne of comment and criticism simply because of their difference from the norm: ie white male.

We need so many women running for public office that the whole topic of what a woman wears when she's running for office is boring - to everyone. (It was boring to me from the beginning.) We need so many black people in positions of power that the whole question of how angry they are is a moot point - because it will be obvious that as individuals they are all different from one another and hold unique individual points of view.

This ultimately is where white men have it all over every one else. We're so used to seeing them in positions of power that nothing about them particularly excites our interest. And therefore we can focus on them as individuals.

It's a bit like what Coco Chanel said - you want them to focus on the woman, not the dress. Well, if we had a more diverse ruling class we could focus on the people themselves and not their skin tone or gender.

The author seems very confused.

Would anyone have published this book if it wasn't for the author's famous family? And if the book is really about being an artist, rather than the wife and mother of famous people, why is she so focused on her children and husband? In almost every point made about a turning point in her life it was what Frances wanted that determined her choices.

NB I have absolutely no criticism of being focussed on family. It sounds likee the author has done a great job. But if that is the case she's not an artist, she's a wife and mother.

I got the same confusion from the anecdotes told about her 'exhibition'. Her daughter is her greatest work? That's about being a mother. She put little oscars given to her in Frances' Oscar cabinet? That's being a (envious perhaps) wife.

You don't get everything. If she'd had that abortion her whole life would have been different. If she'd screwed up the courage to quit being a martyr and hired some help she MIGHT have made it as an artist. As it is, the whole thing read to me as a series of excuses.

Frances said ... He had to work that day ... I was frustrated but ...

Too many women live this way. Own your choices! Feel good about them! Make no apologies for them! BUt don't make excuses either.

And finally - it's a bit rich to have written a book - apparently, this is what I gleaned from this interview - about being a wife and mother and then to say you don't want the frustrations of your marriage to be talked about in the interview. Isn't that the interesting bit where the author individuated herself? Apart from being married to a rich and famous man and having a famous daughter I mean. I decided I wouldn't read it at that point.

I don't usually nit pick in letters but I need to correct that first para because what I meant to say was ...

Why does the INTERVIEW focus so much on her as a wife and a mother rather than as an artist. I didn't mean to imply you can't be an artist and also focussed on family. But if you're writing a book about being an artist then it doesn't make any sense for most of the talk about it to focus on family.

Thank you!

If you can't have the best of everything, you can have the best of something. I'll remember that.

Cowhead - I loved your story. Makes me feel good about the daily cup I live for, too. (Stove top espresso, Illy grounds, natch.)

If you have an eighteen month old baby in the house then that means your ten year old marriage has been through a huge transition and change. Congratulations that this is your biggest problem. Really. So many relationships explode around baby issues that I think it's a very healthy sign that this is where your relationship is at. Also am amazed that it's only now he's driving you crazy. I think my husband and I first started driving each other crazy within days, so it has nothing to do with the passion dying or whatever. It's just having to live with another persoon.

But this is the great advantage of living with another person: they can tell you what anti social thing you're doing before you go out and do it in public.

So tell him already. Say 'do you realise that every time you take a sip you sigh?' 'It's really annoying me, additionally, in principle tics are good to deal with early anyway.' 'Would you like to stop?' 'Would you like me to point it out to you so you can bring it into consciousness and therefore begin to stop?' 'Is there anything else I can to help you stop?' etc etc.

Tics are also often a sign of unconscious stress, so it would be good to talk about what might be stressing him and if in this post baby world there might be some ways to relax. eg encourage him to go for a run or swim or get rid of excess energy in some other way.

Finally - I need to vent here - for the whole eighteen years I lived in my parents house I HATED the way my mother chewed. Grr, just thinking about it drives me nuts.