He grew up in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov due south of Moscow. His father, Pavel, was an unsuccessful merchant and master of the cathedral choir, a bore and a bully who thrashed his five sons and forced them to spend cold mornings attending the lengthy services of the Orthodox Church; beating one's children, Rayfield points out, was exceptional, "even for the unenlightened merchant class". The stance is so original - the blend of melancholy and irony, devoid of posturing, heroism or self- pity - that it must derive from the man and his experience of the world. Here, the biographies don't disappoint, though the publication last year of Chekhov's letters to his wife, Olga Knipper, and now this new biography, reveal a more "human" - in the sense of more earthy - character than one might have suspected, especially from the plays. It may not always be possible to judge a writer's personality from the work (followers of Jean-Paul Sartre used to mooch around St-Germain- des-Pres in black sweaters, with faces that showed they had grasped what it meant to be alone in a godless universe, but the philosopher himself was to tell interviewers that he had never known a day's unhappiness) With Chekhov, however, one cannot be mistaken. I'm probably one of the most intolerant people I know and there are certain things I can't stand. I should not have treated her that way in public.I don't think I'll go on knowing her.

It's just that we don't have enough in common to keep the bond alive !. She could very easily have taken it as an insult because I think that's how it was intended. The next night, however, we were in Manchester and had a terrible disagreement. I'm afraid I was very rude.I was saying that I thought most men were not entirely happy with their lives but they couldn't change them and that they needed to have a little more courage, when Erica interrupted me.

She was not insulting at all, I was the one who was insulting She felt I was being superficial or something like that. She goes into Freud and I say, "I don't believe you believe that shit." I was so outraged that she actually believes that Freudian stuff.Erica was very nice and tolerant and patient She took it as a serious point that I had made. But then I have a very, very broad notion of the Women's Movement. I think Erica felt almost like a missionary in a much milder way than me.

She probably felt - she never said this - she wanted to make it okay for women to have desire and act on it. Erica is important in that she helped to legitimate the subject of sex for female characters. That's a major accomplishment.We were friendly for a couple of years Erica would come down from Connecti- cut She had a BMW or something and a young man drove it for her We last saw each other in the early Eighties We drifted apart I really don't know what happened I think Erica got involved with a new man I met her at a peace march in Central Park in 1980. She put emphasis on the fact that she hadn't had that kind of uninhibited sex and she wished she could.

I do find it amusing that people always assume that women's books - not men's - are autobiographical because women have no imagination and no intellect, so they could never make up a story, right? It has to be their own life.For a year or two we would have the occasional lunch We talked about literature and literary reputations. We both saw how differently women were treated from men by reviewers and the critical establishment. We both understood what gets done to you, how you get impaled by your public image Erica was kind of burdened in those days. She was on the cover of People magazine with Henry Miller, being a kind of adorable nymphet This image was really quite false to who she was. Erica was a scholarly young woman, probably inhibited and shy. She felt wronged.I don't think Erica is considered to be part of the Women's Movement - not by the people I know I think she is.