Well
my mum's been and done a lot of things. Taught, run several businesses, had kids and wrote a book. When she first tentatively asked me to read it, I was a little hesitant. What if it was drop dead awful? But bit the bullet and read it.

It was fantastic but that's beside the point. Not only was it damn good, but it displayed a filthy sense of humour that I didn't really know she had. I'd spent the first eighteen years of my life loving my mum, but believing that she was just that- my mother, sedate, Catholic and moral, that to read this book shook up my entire point of view. Vulgar, feminist, lavatorial, shocking. I hardly knew how to look her in the face after reading it, but I was also immensely proud, and more than a little jealous. Everyone talks about writing a book, but she's almost the only person I know who has actually put her 180,000 words on paper
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Fri 12 Feb 2010, 4:37, Reply)