by Antony Penrose; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; 216 pages; $29.95.

Lee Miller, the celebrated American model, lover, and photographer of the nineteen twenties, thirties, and forties, lived the troubled, adventurous life of a heroine in contemporary fiction. As revealed by her son Antony Penrose in a tone of loving, suppressed fury, she whirled like a tornado through Europe between the wars, touching down here and there, leaving havoc in her wake. The book is beautifully wrought and generously illustrated with striking examples of her work—celebrity portraits, surrealist set pieces, gritty, haunting scenes from World War II—and with photographs of Miller herself at her most, and her least, lovely.