When Kathryn Harrison was a little girl, her young mother left her in the care of her British grandmother. A remarkable woman and master storyteller, she had jilted an array of suitable men before concluding that she was not quite modern enough to have a baby without a husband. She finally married, at the age of 43, in 1942. The fruit of this union, Harrison's mother, was no more interested in forming permanent relationships. An occasional witness to her daughter's growth to adulthood, she would appear sporadically in film-star clothes and force unwanted glamour on her shy child. Now a mother herself, Harrison has written a memoir about the ties that bind mothers to their children, and the forces that can drive them apart. She reveals the thrill of shoplifting, and the horror of shopping with mother, sharing those unforgettable episodes that form the drama of domestic life.