Moll

Molly Parkin's background was poor. Her parents were ill-suited and fought constantly, and both later became alcoholics. Her father was alternately physically abusive and very affectionate, thereby setting up a pattern of highly-charged sexual violence that she sought in her future relationships with men. She studied fine art at college and painted throughout her first marriage. After years of violence and betrayals she left her husband, taking her two daughters, and found herself unable to paint - a block which it took her 20 years to overcome. Turning her talents to the fashion world, she became an arbiter of style at the height of the "Swinging Sixties", as fashion editor of "Nova", "Harper's" and "The Sunday Times". Her second marriage - to a younger man, the painter Patrick Hughes - took her down to Cornwall, where she wrote her best-selling comic-erotic novels. Outwardly it seemed she could do no wrong, but she was already drinking to excess and the marriage was failing. They moved to New York, staying at the notorious Chelsea Hotel and mixing with the famous and infamous, indulging in sex, drugs and drink. Just before she left for England to see her ailing mother, her husband tried to kill her, and back home - alone - she embarked on a career as a cabaret artiste, but the day she blacked out on stage in an alcoholic stupor was her lowest point. She contemplated suicide, but slowly fought back, seeking and eventually finding a spiritual centre to her life. This is Molly Parkin's autobiography.