Herve Le Tellier did not consider himself to have been an unhappy child - he was not deprived, or beaten, or abused. And yet he understood from a young age that something was wrong, and longed to leave. Having reached a certain emotional distance at sixty years old, and with his father and stepfather dead and his mother suffering from late-stage Alzheimer's, Le Tellier finally felt able to write the story of his family. Abandoned early by his father and raised in part by his grandparents, he was profoundly affected by his relationship with his mother, a troubled woman with damaging views on love. In this perceptive, deeply personal account, Le Tellier attempts to look back on trying times in his life without anger or regret, and even with humour.