'Laugh-out-loud funny...proudly, and sometimes painfully, honest. It is also, arguably, the finest and most hopeful memoir to emerge in many years and, as such, it really should not be missed' John Burnside, The Times
In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival.
This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness, about lessons in love, the search for a mother and a journey into madness and out again. It is generous, honest and true.
'Brave and beautiful, a testament to the forces of intelligence, heart and imagination' Spectator
'Boasts everything that she does best: courage, ferocity and prose that soars' Julie Myerson, 'Books of the Year', New Statesman
