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It's a joy to read a novel by a writer who pays as much attention to language as Will Self.

This is a disturbing book. I kept thinking what I would think of it if I hadn't known it's the product of Self's interpretation and retelling of what he found in his late mother's diaries.

When he writes that his mother writes badly, that she can't stand herself, for how badly she writes--is that her judgment, or his? I kept being distracted by questions like this. When Will Self writes: "She has felt his tongue twine in hers, his hands on her hips and her back" do I blame Will Self, or is that an example of his mother's bad writing? (Let me add that I do think this is bad writing, tongues don't twine.)

So I ended up thinking too much about every sentence. On the other hand, I was invited and encouraged to think about every sentence, and it's maybe even true that my head was held in place, and I was forced to look at every sentence. This is a claustrophobic story, told with uncomfortable intimacy, and I guess that is the point. A story fashioned by and inspired by the diaries of an woman with an imprisoned mind, and who wrote thoughts warped by misogyny and self-loathing, and the fact that I couldn't tell what were thoughts coming from a real person who suffered, and what were thoughts filtered through the memory and imagination of her son, was disturbing.