This is a wry and likably feisty account of the destructive power an unstable parent can wield over her offspring

When it comes to attempting suicide, Kolia’s mother is a “repeat offender”. A human rights barrister on the verge of being disbarred, Lalita craves her now adult daughter’s attention with such ferocity that, when denied, she throws herself in the river, lies down in the middle of the road or drinks cleaning fluid. “She tells me that it’s my fault,” says Kolia, now in her 20s and tutoring posh kids in London while hoping to go to art college. “She only did it because I wasn’t talking to her.”

Kolia left her mother’s home long ago, “because there were often smashed plates … clothes being cut up or wrists being grabbed or pulled”. But Lalita’s two young sons from a second marriage are still at the mercy of their mother’s chaotic parenting, which is at best inappropriate, at worst abusive or downright cruel. As a young teen, Kolia once complained that her chest was too small; her mother showed her a photograph of a woman whose breasts had been cut off by soldiers.