What is the exact need of academics to write their autobiographies? Case in Point: Hazel Barnes. An academic who was the first to provide a faithful translation of Sartre, she also wrote an excellent little study, An Existentialist Ethics. If she had left it at that, she might have been left with a nice little intellectual legecy, albeit, a mostly anomymous one as her books go out of print and more precise translations of Sartre become available. But she has to write her autobiography, and if there ever was a useless tome, this is surely it. Though well written, the reader will quickly come to the conclusion that there is nothing really to write about, nothing that couldn't have been captured in a magazine article for the New Yorker or the American Scholar, that is. I found it a surprise that she was, indeed, an existentialst, for she is surely among the most repressed people on the face of the earth. Not the stuff of existential heroism and certainly not the stuff to charge a person $20.00 or so dollars to read.

A brilliantly written autobiography by an academic, who leaves her conservative Christian upbringing to discover that one can bring meaning and "significance" to one's life without the security and structure of organized religion. Written with wit and charm, she takes us on her own journey past the nihilistic despair that often is associated with existentialism, to a wonderful place that is tender and life-affirming. Her last chapter, reflecting on aging and mortality, may be her best. It may not be an easy read, but Hazel Barnes tells her story without a hint of academic hubris. A must read for anyone wrestling with the angst, it is a privileged peek into the life and mind of an extraordinary human being.