A reflective, potent memoir about difficult parents, damaging loves and a life lived at passionate extremes. Vanessa Nicolson is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. She was born to an illustrious name and an unhappy marriage. Her father, the art historian Ben Nicolson, was homosexual and his marriage to Vanessa's Italian mother fell apart when Vanessa was very young. She chronicles her disjointed childhood and reckless youth, including holidays at Sissinghurst Castle with her cousins, and her experience of a liberal English boarding school. Interlinked with her story is that of her daughter Rosa, who died, aged 19.