'I loved this book, I was moved by this book and now I will share this book with my own mother.' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middle Place comes a new memoir that examines the bond between mothers and daughters.

Kelly Corrigan's mother summarised the the division of labour in her family as: 'Your father's the glitter, but I'm the glue.' This meant nothing to Kelly, who left her childhood sure that her mum would be nothing more than background for the rest of Kelly's life.

After college, she took off see things and Become Interesting. In a matter of months her savings had dwindled and she needed a job. That's how she met John Tanner, a newly widowed Australian father of two looking for a live-in nanny.There, in that small, motherless house her mother's voice was suddenly everywhere.

Each day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day she spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, trying to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its shadowy spiral.

This is a book about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.