The British author, poet, feminist and Spare Rib's poetry editor published Live As Family at 19, while in her first year at St Andrew's University. Her bildungsroman, which satirised the governess-turned-love trope, was critically well-received: "I was reviewed, interviewed, photographed, autograph-hunted, wined, dined, flirted-with and flattered. [Fairbairns tells us] One male journalist was kind enough to describe me in print as 'an attractive brunette.'" She was not, however, apparently attractive enough: "the photograph of my face which appeared on the front of my book, wasn't really me. It had started out as a photograph of me, but the publishers' design team had obviously decided that in my natural state I wasn't good enough. I didn't have the long eyelashes of Sandie Shaw, the pallor and gauntness of Twiggy, or the cheekbones of Mary Quant. So they had got out their airbrushes and improved me." Fairbairns subsequently struggled to get later novels accepted by mainstream publishing houses: "One [publisher] spoke for many when she said, 'I'm sure there IS a novel to be written about the Women's Lib movement but yours isn't funny enough." (ibid). Instead, Fairbairns' best known novel, Benefits (1979), was published by Virago and garnered broad critical attention, featured in "Time Out magazine's alternative bestsellers, was translated into Swedish, Danish, Turkish and German, and published as a mass-market paperback in the USA." Zoe Fairbairns (2017) 'Feminist Publishing: Then, now and in the future'. Keynote Lecture at Five Leaves Bookshop's Feminist Publishing event. Seller Inventory # 2371