"Lyndall Gordon was born in 1941 in Cape Town, a place from which 'a ship takes fourteen days to reach anywhere that matters.' Born to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors, Lyndall was her secret sharer, a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. It was an exciting, precious world, pure and rich in dreams and imagination - untainted by the demands of reality. But a daughter grows up..."--