Like the infamous character, Norman Bates, whom he portrayed in the Hitchcock film Psycho, Anthony Hopkins was a loner with a fear of women, due in part to his domineering mother. This biography describes how, to a great extent, his life was an attempt to bury both his mother and Norman Bates. His struggle, which took him through homosexuality, psychoanalysis and drugs, culminated in a happy marriage in his forties, but was then blighted by AIDS. The book, for which the author interviewed a wide variety of people who knew and worked with Perkins, also depicts a attractive man of charm, humour, courage and talent.