True North

Conway ( The Road from Coorain ) continues her autobiography with this account covering the period from her departure from Australia for the U.S. to enter graduate school in 1960 through her appointment as Smith College president in 1975. She is delighted by New York City and by Harvard, where she forges enduring friendships with women, finds intellectual stimulation and begins her study of women's history. Harvard's Leverett House Master, John Conway, a Canadian war hero 18 years her senior, becomes her husband. If the author is reticent about the course of this romance, she candidly reflects on her weakening ties to Australia and her ``psychological warrior'' mother, her husband's bouts with depression, their life as academics in Toronto and her coming to grips with infertility. She also recounts her growing reputation as a historian, her pragmatic feminism drawn from her teaching experiences, her fights for pay equity and her appointment as the first woman vice president at the University of Toronto. Hers is an absorbing, charming story of a life lived fully. 60,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour. (Aug.)