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|summary=Crystal clear prose, a dry sense of humour and a complete lack of self -pity elevates Keeping Mum from the swollen ranks of the "poor me" memoirs into something that is really quite sublime. Highly recommended.

Thompson grew up in London and Cambridge during the 1940s. His parents, Peggy and Bert, were the two people most unsuited to be parents that I've ever read about. While Bert went to war with the RAF, Peggy spent it "running around with the Yanks" and completely neglecting her young son, much to the disapproval of family and friends. My great aunt Helen did much the same thing and is similarly disapproved of by family today, despite her ninety-odd years. Peggy was a manic-depressive and was by turns neglectful of and abusive towards her young son. Bert, once returned from the war, can't see past his wife's infidelities and views the hapless Brian as having collaborated in them. He becomes a weekend visitor only, and spends most of his time either arguing violently with Peggy or resolutely disparaging everything Brian is or does.

This isn't a ''poor me'' memoir. It isn't a chirpy, jolliness-in-adversity memoir. It hasn't got its eye on a bank balance and it isn't cathartic therapy for the writer forced upon the reader. ''Keeping Mum'' sparkles with crystal clear, elegant prose. It is clear-sighted and kind-hearted but it is never sentimental. It contains not an ounce of self -pity. At moments when a lesser book would be wringing the last, despairing tear from you, ''Keeping Mum'' makes your roar with laughter. And yet, somehow, the laughter doesn't seem out of place.

''Jazz... the steady traffic of vibrant human-interest stories, told in an idiom as powerful as film but without, for the most part, film's saccharine sentimentality. The presumption of every film made in America was that at the end goodness triumphed and the building blocks of the story went back into the box. In jazz, by comparison, the story was left spilled spilt on the floor, to be continued in the next instalment.''

Another wonderfully-written memoir standing clear of the competition is [[Hellfire and Herring]] by Christopher Rush. You might also enjoy [[A Corner of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations) by Brian Thompson]].

It is, however, a little unkind to mention other books that have been written by people with bad childhood's as 'poor me' books. Yes, there are alot a lot out at the moment but only because it has been such a closed subject for years but in the great scheme of things there are only a few when compared to the number of years they were absent from the bookshelf. Child abuse is a dreadful thing to suffer from, trust me on this and there is no 'poor me' about it. The writers of these books have not thrust it on the reader, you can chose choose to buy or not to buy, simple as. What is outrageous is that these human beings have had to experience it in the first place.

I hope the above does not sound like a lecture! You Your site is brilliant and will always have my attention but I felt very strongly on this point and hence the email.

|comment=Um... yes, I see your point. However, I didn't coin the term, and I do think an industry has grown up around these kinds of memoirs. And the industry is profit-based. I object most strongly to books in which the ghost writing ghostwriting employs the crude literary tactics found in thriller novels to prolong tension and force emotion from the reader. And many of these books do just that. I don't denigrate anybody's experience, neither do I object to those experiences being published. I do, however, object to the experiences being manipulated by literary technique to cause shock and horror. There is no need.