As a teenager at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, she fell in love with Arnold Horowitz, an English teacher who was among the first to encourage her writing talent.

After graduating from high school, Harrison, who had been forbidden to attend university, went to live and work at the Jehovah's Witness world headquarters, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in Brooklyn Heights.

The relationship was but one symptom of a growing conflict between Harrison's faith and her artistic sensibilities, which eventually led to a nervous breakdown.

Through him, Harrison associated with many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, including Ben Webster, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

"Jazzman", as Harrison called her lover in her autobiography, would come back into her life nearly 40 years later; the two would resume their affair with undiminished passion and conflict until a second, and final, break-up.

The couple spent the eight years of their marriage living in Tripoli (Libya), Mumbai and Hyderabad (India), and Chichicastenango (Guatemala).

Although Harrison expressed admiration for individual Witnesses and wrote sympathetically of their persecution, she portrayed the faith itself as harsh and tyrannical, racist and sexist.

Among the people she interviewed were Red Barber, Mario Cuomo, Jane Fonda, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, Francis Ford Coppola, Nadia Comăneci, Alessandra Mussolini, Barbara Bush and Oprah Winfrey.

on the Grill", which lampooned the "philosophy" of popular TV chef The Frugal Gourmet, was included in the 1993 edition of Best American Essays.

As the title implied, the book was less a straightforward memoir than a stream-of-consciousness collection of memories and reflections, loosely organised by theme.