Not Quite Posthumous Letter to My Daughter

Kirkus review - Mrs. Thomas is now killing time in her Leftover Life by writing another book, this time an apostrophe to her daughter for whom she draws a portrait of a young lady who will turn out very differently. Once again shrilly assertive, she condemns herself and the life she led with Dylan (the drinking, debt and waste) and strafes her own earlier account of it- her ""untidy, messy muck of writing"". This book is perhaps not quite as shapeless, but still the tenor of chaos and violent excess prevail. There is however some advice on beauty, manners, along with an inventory of men to marry or not marry. There are a few non-Chesterfieldian maxims: ""a scratch of bitchery in a woman is a necessity if she is to be noticed""; ""Jealousy is the lifelong noose hanging about the neck of love""; ""Sex is the nice orange juice that makes the nasty castor oil of love go down"", but for the most part this is a kind of tiresome caterwauling, or as she would say, ""gassy palavering"".