I was eager to read this book having seen so much pre-publication publicity praising it in the highest terms. And I was intrigued to find out more about the author, though sadly this came through obituaries, due to her recent death from breast cancer.

Deborah Orr was a highly respected, formidable journalist and editor, and she had been married to the novelist Will Self.

This book is her exploration of her upbringing in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.

It is deceptively simple in style, so much so that for the first few chapters it feels like an 'everyman' account of childhood. This happened and then this happened. While I didn't live in a council house in Scotland, there were many elements of day to day life that resonated.

I felt the author's pain at being duped out of change when she came out of a shop buying bread. I remember my uncool hobby as a child, not macrame but lacemaking! And I appreciate the efforts of a particular teacher who pushed me to try harder for university.

But my family relationships were nothing like the author's, and neither was my experience of university life or my early career. I was horrified by all that is shared here towards the end of the book, though I admire the honesty. These incidents could have been unpacked in much more detail, but they were not the point of the book, beyond illustrating how the author wanted to talk to her mother about them, but didn't have a relationship where that would be possible.

In this book, the author wants us to understand the conflicting relationship she had with her mother. Win was a strong woman, who obviously wanted to protect and nurture her children and husband, but she was motivated in a way which caused Deborah to feel compromised, manipulated, controlled and often unloved. She reveals lots of negative and potentially destructive emotions.

This is a stunning book, not least because it takes you by surprise. The early years are safe and happy even as the author hints to us that things aren't as they seem. As you get deeper into the book, you find that you are challenged, saddened, even infuriated by the lack of understanding and compassion between the family members. There is a gap, a chasm, in the expectations of one generation over the other. And there is a pervasive presentation of narcissism, suggesting that it is a far more common trait than is widely acknowledged.

This is a stunning, powerful book and I feel a loss in having finished it, compounded by the knowledge that the author is no longer with us.