Home Is Where We Start

Vivid and painfully honest … Painful to read but so beautifully done … There’s something of the Levy sensibility here. It’s serious and poetic. It’s delicate and wise. It’s a multilayered excavation, a rich but also careful unfolding of the truth * Sunday Times *Crossman’s extraordinary memoir of the tyranny of her childhood is heartbreaking, eye-opening, and difficult to put down * iNews, The best new books to read in August *Engrossing … Examines philosophical and sociological perspectives on the meaning of home, giving insight into why utopias are unattainable * Daily Mirror *Ambitious, compelling … The diarist’s sense of urgency and the child’s creative use of language have stayed with her, often producing vivid prose * Financial Times *I hugely admire Crossman’s resistance against the tyranny of it all – and her constant will to survive * The i *Vivid and poignant … A powerful memoir of a particularly unusual childhood … Concrete, disturbing and moving * Observer *This isn’t a misery memoir. Crossman examines philosophical and sociological perspectives on the meaning of home, giving insight both into why utopias are unattainable and why we shouldn’t try to reach them in the first place * Ireland Live *Brave … While the author discourses intelligently on the abiding failures of utopias, and interweaves her own experiences as a therapist, I think the primary purpose of the book was to explore and thus exorcise her childhood demons. In this one can only hope she has been successful. * Spectator, Salley Vickers *A bold and intimate grappling with the hidden history at the heart of a childhood that was set up as a collectivist social experiment. A true piece of work and one that is historically significant * Ewan Morrison, author of How To Survive Everything *A wondrous book. Brave and beautifully written. An extraordinary anxiety-inducing dive into life in a late-70s/80s utopia, told through a child’s eyes. Will live with me a long time. * Allan Jenkins, author of Plot 29 *

Susanna Crossman grew up in an international utopian community in England during the 1970s and 80s. Now based in France, she works internationally as a writer, clinical arts therapist, and lecturer. Her recent writing has featured in Aeon, the Paris Review and Vogue. She is a published novelist in French, and regularly collaborates with artists. She lives with her partner and three daughters.