Adrienne Rich notes dryly that "the first verbal attack slung at the woman who demonstrates a primary loyalty to herself and other women is man-hater."… [On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978] continues to offer its primary loyalties to women. The author also refuses to allow her very real compassion for men (which an astute reader will not miss) to defuse her conclusions, nor does she parade evidence of her "humanism" (a word Rich has elsewhere said she finds false and will no longer use).

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence can be seen as one woman's journey past obligatory "humanism" …, to the position of a woman who does not give a damn about such voices because she is talking to women…. The shift occurs halfway through the book, in 1974. The earlier Rich is capable of assuming (in "The Antifeminist Woman") that equal pay is "serious" and housework trivial; the later Rich … can state, "it is the realities civilization has told [women] are unimportant, regressive, or unspeakable which prove our most essential resources."

Not a popular stand. But its uncompromising honesty frees her for some fine things, from the bitter accuracy of "Toward a Woman-Centered University" to the splendid "Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson."… At her best Rich is inimitable….

Inevitably the book is uneven. Among the best of the literary essays are those on Dickinson, Jane Eyre (although Rich scants the difficulties of the novel's ending), and the contemporary poet, Judy Grahn…. Rich's essays on lesbianism, like the last essay in the book (a meditation on racism and women) are more promising and less complete than the others, the other subjects being matters she understands more thoroughly because they are more limited….

Rich is not charming; moreover, her uncomfortable honesty takes place in an atmosphere of passionately felt tragedy. The integrity and clarity of this book are very old-fashioned virtues….

The attack of "man-hater" will most likely be made. Rich, mentioning wife-battering, father-daughter incest, the sadism of pornography, and the forced sterilization of poor and Third World women, asks simply, "who … hates whom."

This is a fine book to read if you want to find out.