Jealousy is an evil word. It is an emotion that gnaws away inside, souring relationships, and if it is not controlled can ruin your life. When Nancy Friday discovered her own strong feelings of jealousy she was shocked. But she found that she was not alone, and that jealousy is at the heart of family life and the core of many relationships. Friday used her own experiences and those of many men and women to strip bare this multi-faceted emotion. Confronting the reasons why you feel so bitter when, for instance, a friend lands the job you've always wanted, your mother confides in your sister rather than you, you fear your partner has been seeing someone else or a baby is born and disrupts your family life, she enables us to recognize that jealousy is a misery we inflict upon ourselves - and it needn't control us.For Friday, first learning, then writing, about a problem is a way of solving it. She is herself a jealous woman, she says, and in this book she probes the fear of loss of love, envy, and power, because in her mind the three are inextricably mixed. Many of her insights come from her reading of psychoanalytic works, particularly those of Melanie Klein, others come from discussions with friends and colleagues. She describes infantile envy and rage, the raw jealousy of young siblings, how men and women regulate their lives to avoid the lessons of jealousy learned in childhood, and how love and gratitude can overcome envy. Friday's reputation makes this a necessary purchase for most libraries, but readers who do not share the author's interest in jealousy may find the book rather heavy going.