Sallie Bingham came of age as a writer in New York City in the 1960s, a time of great cultural energy. Having recently graduated from Radcliffe College and married to Arthur Whitney Ellsworth, one of the founders of The New York Review of Books, she traveled in the literary circle that included Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, Frederick Seidel, and Arthur Kopit. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of her earliest stories are told from a male point of view, and many of her young women characters define themselves in relation to the men in their lives. Often, the women occupy a superior position, either because of their social class or their education, but this inequity does not always work to their benefit. The sexes, drawn together by money, desire, and, sometimes, simple loneliness, are forever negotiating accommodation. As Bingham's career matured, her women characters step from the shadows and begin...