Divided Lives

This intriguing study of the lives of three high-profile women--TV journalist Meredith Vieira; musical conductor Rachael Worby, married to West Virginia Governor Gaston Caperton; and breast surgeon Alison Estabrook--will be compulsive reading for career women. Walsh, a reporter for the Washington Post, spent lengthy periods of time over several years with her subjects. Her skillful, sympathetic interviewing techniques have elicited frank and very personal portraits of these women, who seem to have it all, and details how they coped with conflicting demands of home and family and rampant sexism in the workplace. Vieira describes her torment over trying to be a good mother while satisfying the demands of unsympathetic CBS executives who eventually drove her from 60 Minutes. Worby's conducting career was curtailed because her husband's constituents expected a ``first lady'' image that was impossible for her to maintain. The sexist politics at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center were an obstacle that took Estabrook years to overcome. A riveting read. (Aug.)