Ms. Styron is an excellent writer--and she does not shy away from the sometimes painful or unflattering memories from both her life and her famous father's. Above all, this memoir is not what it could have been: a name-dropping tell-all sensational read. The author's honesty and respect for What Really Happened is refreshing, and is not pushed past the point of integrity for the sake of book sales. But she is not shy about the Ugly Truth about her often abusive, mentally unstable famous father. She gives the reader the historical pieces along with her personal experiences, and even acknowledges how her memories occasionally conflict with what she finds while researching her dad's nearly endless records of correspondence and unpublished manuscripts. This vivid account of a family and it's fiercely larger-than-life patriarch is a brilliant achievement and worthy tribute to realism and the journey of a great, though troubled writer's mind.