This is the story of a girl and her harrowing life with a violent mother.
It is, tragically, a true story. The girl is Constance, who would become the first Black woman judge in England—now married, a mother of two. Throughout reading this book, one question haunted me: How did this child survive such an childhood? How did she reach such important milestones in her life, and how did she preserve her integrity when everything in her experience—rejection, neglect, the denial of basic care, psychological and physical cruelty, repeated abuse—could have shattered her?
Other questions follow. The girl said almost nothing; that much is clear. Yet it is hard to fathom how so many "ordinary" people—teachers, priests, social workers—failed to notice what was happening in that house. And how does an adult come to commit such acts against a child, or even speak to one in such ways?
But a child should never bear the burden of understanding the beast in a parent's heart.
The prose is spare and unflinching. Difficult as the subject is, the book reads urgently, compulsively, despite its length. It takes courage to write and read such testimony. Yet Briscoe offers a powerful example of dignity, strength of spirit, and resilience—that rare capacity to endure and overcome trauma, which she possesses in abundance.
Cristina Tersigni, 2007