Many readers might think a memoir about a woman born in a small village in England who, in her 20s, buys a motorbike and roars into a radical lesbian community in London and gets arrested for being a housing squatter isn't exactly their cup of tea. But "Love in Good Time," by Claire Robson, is so much more. At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times shocking, at times poignant, it is the story of a mother-daughter relationship that moves from difficulty and estrangement to a tenderness and, though largely unspoken, loving understanding. It is a "coming-out" story of a young woman in the crazy idealistic years of the '60s and '70s. And it is the story of a funny, irreverent woman who never takes herself too seriously and bumbles through, like the rest of us, to a fuller understanding and acceptance of herself.

Robson tells her story with the wisdom of hindsight, yet never lets herself off the hook, exposing with honesty and courage the ignorance or anger or denial she experiences at various times in her life. And she writes with the vivid language of the poet, with an ear for alliteration and lyricism.

Now living in Ashland, New Hampshire, Robson grew up in Glenburn, a small village in northern England where her father was a headmaster. Her memoir follows her from Glenburn to York University. After an ill-fated and short-lived marriage, she motors to London and becomes part of "the Shangri-La of lesbian sisterhood," as she describes it. And, after finding her first stable relationship with another woman, she spends 16 years as a teacher and assistant principal at a very proper English high school.

Finding and living according to one's "true nature" is a major theme of "Love in Good Time." As a young girl in Glenburn, Robson knows only her parents' way of living: a father who was "unexacting….but unrewarding," and a mother for whom "being unreasonable was as natural...as breathing" and who "wasn't convinced God had a decent grip on things."

Robson reacts by "pretending to be normal and cheerful" and treading lightly around her mother while feeling like an outcast because she likes to read, does not like to wear dresses and "wanted nothing to do with beauty."

University opens up a whole new world to Robson – a world of popular music, activism and great writers who weren't Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton or Donne.

"Apparently, some great writers were still alive, and some of them were not even British!"

And a world where everyone else but her had had sex.

"It was not good to be a virgin at nineteen. Even Princess Anne had had sex."

And, if that were not reason enough, Robson decides that, since "sex was a prominent theme in English Literature…to have it would surely expand my understanding of the great writers."

She proceeds on a series of sex experiments with men that ends with Luke, a mathematics and philosophy major who is also a virgin and as eager as she to be deflowered. Yet the person she is most attracted to is her friend, Linda, but when they have sex, she's not sure what to call it: "I must have known that women could make love – I'd seen a couple of films where it was hinted at – but I didn't know it was an option."

Despite her brief foray into another way of living and loving, Robson marries Luke – mainly to please her mother. Yet, she continues the relationship with Linda and even asks her to serve as her maid of honor.

She cannot continue the charade, however. Her first venture into the gay liberation scene is both hilarious and poignant with her innocence and naiveté. She tries out various poses in the bathroom – the James Dean white-tee-shirt-and-black- leather-jacket look or the Che Guevara beret-at-an-angle look. She even writes a script in her head as she stares into the bathroom mirror: "Claire's steely blue eyes narrowed slightly at the thought." and "Babs admired the strong bones of her face."

On vacation with Luke in Scandinavia, Robson comes to the conclusion that she cannot continue in her marriage. And that her life is no better than that of her parents, despite her vow to be as different from her mother as possible.

"I hadn't escaped my mother's lot at all," she writes, "merely exchanged it for an upgrade."

Radical lesbian separatist becomes another persona Robson tries on as she continues to search for her "true nature." She is "leather clad and big booted, sporting a brand new buzz cut, a bad street face, and a terse way with words." She doesn't see or speak with her parents, she experiments with sex and drugs and actively disparages religion and love and the patriarchy.

Her comments on herself and the radical lesbian sisterhood are funny in the midst of her confusion. She describes the perfect radical lesbian with impeccable qualifications:

"Holly worked at a battered women's shelter by day and studied at night to become a lawyer so that she could advocate for battered women even more effectively. She read the Times and The Socialist Worker every morning over yogurt and granola. She was thus able to support a plethora of judgments with careful reasoning and well-substantiated facts. No doubt her bowel movements were equally well ordered."

Only when Robson falls in love for the first time does she begin to believe that love and commitment are possible. She and her partner, Sally, move from London to Kent where Robson takes a job as a grammar school teacher and Sally studies to become an osteopathic physician. They settle into a life as confined and prescribed as Robson's parents' life.

Robson gives up drugs and meat and alcohol and takes up meditation. She and Sally "were honest and upright in all our dealings. We turned the other cheek. We worked hard and avoided temptation."

And now, because she owns a house and has a job, Robson can "call my parents every week with good news and they were happy to hear that I was doing so well."

Yet she is still living a life of deception, "de-dyking" the house when her parents come to visit and working as the perfect assistant deputy head at her grammar school, where all they know of her personal life is that she likes cats and gardening. She knows she is playing at being a grown-up as she talks with her headmaster:

"I listened to myself abandoning my northern accent and trying to sound BBC, affecting a cultivated laugh and crossing my legs at the ankle."

Robson has achieved success as an educator – she is deputy headmistress at a prestigious private high school – when she is faced with her father's death and her mother's adjustment to life without the man she depended upon for her daily needs. Surprisingly, her mother copes better than expected and she and Robson become closer. One of the most touching scenes in the book takes place as Robson helps her mother with her bath. Without ever explicitly acknowledging that her daughter is a lesbian, Robson's mother says:

"I knew you were different from the start. You would never play with dolls, you know, even when you were little. I just didn't want to see it. I had to come to terms with it."

Even more touching, though, is the acknowledgment by both mother and daughter that they have come to a new understanding of one another and that they value and accept the other. Robson tells her mother she is a powerful woman.

"I mean that you're a strong person. You've been ill and in pain most of your life but you never gave up. You kept going. You made Sunday dinners and birthday cakes and ironed our clothes for us. Look at how you've coped since Dad died. You've been amazing."

"Maybe you got something from me after all," her mother replies. "You got your brains from your dad, you know; but maybe you got your stickability from me. You've always gone your own way."

"You're just not the marrying kind," Robson's mother pronounces. "Well, my mother always said that you can't change anyone's nature."

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