Streisand tells the story-behind-the-story for the first time, revealing the inner demons that have driven her career - and shaped her tumultuous personal life. Written by a Hollywood insider and based on interviews with more than 140 of Streisand's friends, family, lovers, associates, and enemies - many of whom go on the record for the first time - Streisand takes you on a revelatory journey from her Brooklyn beginnings to the controversies surrounding her latest movie, The Mirror Has Two Faces.

In between, we come to know Barbra Streisand as never before. We enter her world of childhood angst, of unprecedented youthful ambition and glittering Broadway stardom at twenty-two. We learn what went into her extraordinary success as singer, screen actor, and director - and what went on in her tempestuous private life, from her first bruising teenage affair to her marriage to Elliott Gould and her romances with Omar Sharif, Jon Peters, Pierre Trudeau, Don Johnson, James Brolin, and others.

We are given moving insight into her relationship with her only son, Jason, and her acceptance of his gay lifestyle; her complicated feelings toward her mother; her unusual and deeply felt connection to her goddaughter, Caleigh - the daughter she never had - and the lowdown on her high-profile political activism. Above all, we come to understand as never before the unique blend of talent, vulnerability, passion, and ambition that has made Barbra Streisand the enduring, fascinating star she is.