Every Time I Write A Book, I've

It Is Living, Not Thinking, As A Feminist That Has Become The Challenge.

We Who Were Born Were Not Witnesses To Our Birth: Like Death, It Is Something We Are Forever After Trying To Catch Sight Of.

I Have No Sense Of A Model Or Predecessor When I Write A Memoir: For Me, The Form Exists As A Method Of Processing Material That Retains Too Many Connections To Life To Be Approached Strictly And Aesthetically. A Memoir Is A Risk, A One-off, A Bastard Child.

In Domestic Life The Woman's Value Is Inherent, Unquantifiable; At Home She Exchanges Proven Values For Mythological Ones. She "wants" To Be At Home, And Because She Is A Woman She's Allowed To Want It. This Desire Is Her Mystique, It Is Both What Enables Her To Domesticate Herself And What Disempowers Her.

The 'good' Mother, With Her Fixed Smile, Her Rigidity, Her Goody-goody Outlook, Her Obsession With Unnecessary Hygiene, Is In Fact A Fool. It Is The 'bad' Mother, Unafraid Of A Joke And A Glass Of Wine, Richly Self-expressive, Scornful Of Suburban Values, Who Is, In Reality, Good.