This book tells the story of Carolyn Steedman's childhood and her mother's refusal to mother. Taking as her starting off point three forms of narrative, the fairy tale, the psychoanalytical case study and the Working Class (auto)biography Steedman creates a narrative that is unlike any I have read. It is at time incredibly difficult and engaging. She challenges assumptions of class, especially the relationship between gender and class, throughout the text. Her childhood, and the childhoods she draws from other working class narratives are thrown into relief against Freud and Marxism. At the same time she uses these tools to examine herself and the world she grew up in.