How to Survive Your Mother

What does it feel like to find out things about your mother that you weren't supposed to know? In 2004, a chance encounter set investigative reporter Jonathan Maitland on the trail of a shocking scandal involving his own parents. Having spent his TV career hunting down rogues and conmen on behalf of the British public, it never occurred to him that the story of his own mother could be the most gripping - and disturbing - of them all.

As he attempts to uncover the truth about what happened back in the 1960s, Maitland peels back the layers of his extraordinary childhood to reveal the astonishing history of his larger-than-life mother: her tempestuous marriages, her love affairs, her public suicide attempts and her outrageous money-making schemes.

Entertaining, humorous, disturbing and revelatory, this movingly honest memoir will appeal to anyone who has ever had issues with their parents.