Hanging Off the Edge is an extraordinary journey into the mind and life of one of America's most creative women, Priscilla McLean. McLean shares her precarious cliff-edge existence as a classical avant-garde troubadour and the day-by-day tour of the world through Europe, Asia, and Australia. She also writes of her touching story, from growing up in a middle-class family fallen on hard times during World War II to her seemingly settled life as a college professor's wife. McLean's quotes from her extensive journals, kept over a twenty-five-year span of time, give an immediacy and poignancy to Hanging Off the Edge.

Mingled with these memories are original short poems, philosophical thoughts on the artist's life, and a whole section where McLean explores how, over the span of thirty-five years, thirteen special musical creations were born and placed before the world.