Jane's story is indeed stranger than fiction. Having lived through a war in England and grown up in a rough neighbourhood, with a demon aunt and a difficult father, Jane Mullins learnt how to 'smile and wave', one of many survival tactics she passes on in this memoir. An outsider who was determined to get 'in', she found fame and fortune in New York, turned down $24 000 to follow her heart to South Africa, and moved to Cape Town shortly before the Sharpeville massacre made thousands leave a country that had become a pariah. She used her wickedly sharp pen and even sharper wits to win the best job in the world there, birthed babies, magazines, superstars, made millions for everyone except herself, and never stopped fighting against female and juvenile oppression, one of the few things that causes her to lose her characteristic cool. In this frank and funny memoir, written for the thousands of women who have asked her to tell them 'how she did it', the doyenne of magazine publishing tells a great deal more than the her story of women's magazines. This book is impossible to put down, and should come with a warning. It is intended to change women's lives for the better and, as Jane's story proves, print is the most powerful weapon in the world, in the right hands, at the right time.
