I'm Waiting For The Day When My

I Am A Good And Interested Mother - Which Has Surprised Me.

The Distinctive Feature Of My Family Was Intolerance Of Sensitivity And Emotion - Everything's Great, It All Has To Be Great All The Time And Why Do You Have To Spoil It? Whereas Probably The Most Fundamental And Important Thing To Me Has Been Defending My Right To Tell The Truth About How I Feel.

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.

The Writing You Allude To Is A Form Of Dissent, But It's Also Expressive Of The Need To Evolve Beyond What Is Turgid And Stale In Contemporary Fiction.

Shame Is Something You'll Find A Lot Of - Particularly Catholic - Girls Feel About Their Bodies, About Their Sexuality, About Their Diet, About Anything You Like. Shame Is The Way You Keep Them Down. That's The Way To Crush A Girl.