From Issue 3.6 - Summer 1997
by Mistress Nan
Daedalus Publishing, 1995
Review by Liz Highleyman
Daedalus Publishing is best known for educational S/M books such as "Consensual Sadomasochism" by William Henkin and Sybil Holiday, and "Leathersex Q&A" by Joseph Bean (see reviews in February/March 1997). "My Private Life" was a departure for Daedalus, both in being written by a bisexual women rather than a gay man, and in it's narrative rather than didactic focus.
Mistress Nan is both a dominant and a sadist, and at times appears to cross the "safe, sane, and consensual" line. In one early tale she administers a punishment caning to a household employee who, as far as we can tell, has not consented to an S/M relationship with Nan.
Several vignettes relate Mistress Nan's experiences with her submissive Alex. Nan meets the headstrong Alex in 1982, and we follow the progression of their relationship to the point of Alex's complete submission ten years later.
"My Private Life" is said to be an account of true experiences in Mistress Nan's life -- which I don't doubt -- but the book reads like erotic fiction in its story structure and liberal use of explicit descriptions. It would make for quite suitable one-handed reading.