This is the fictionalised autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett. After a youth marked by sudden death and loss, Daisy escapes into conventionality as a middle-class wife and mother. Years later she becomes a successful garden columnist and experiences the kind of awakening that thousands of her contemporaries in mid-century yearned for but missed in alcoholism, marital infidelity and bridge clubs. The events of Daisy's life, however, are less compelling than her rich, vividly described inner life, from her memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death.

This book is on the list of 1001 books to read before you die

This is a very well-written and well observed journal of the 20th Century. I rather enjoyed it.

I left this on one of the tables outside in sunny yet bracing Brigg.