A personal memoir by the daughter of journalist and radical historian Brian Fitzpatrick, this meditation reveals a complex portrait of an Australian family against a Cold War backdrop. Told with piercing insight, this recollection chronicles Sheila's relationship with her father as it fades from girlhood adoration to adolescent skepticism, resulting in her fleeing Melbourne for Oxford to start a new life. Candid and moving, this narrative is a vivid evocation of an Australian childhood and a mature realization that one cannot fully escape one's roots.