In this memoir the author describes her isolated childhood in the Australian outback. She became her father's farmhand, and when he died prematurely, she moved to Sydney, aged 11 years, and had to learn to adapt to a new and alien set of rules. Later she started drinking under the stress of looking after a depressive mother, then became involved in intellectual university life and began a reassessment of the political, cultural and spiritual ideas she had been brought up with. Eventually she became a successful career woman.