Dale Salwak, the editor of a new collection of essays, tells us why he wanted to probe this most complicated of relationships, while Judy Carver, the daughter of William Golding – he of Lord of the Flies – sheds light on her father’s difficult relationship with his mother; Charlotte Shane introduces us to Marjorie Hillis, who, in the 1930s, taught American women how to "live alone and like it"; finally, TLS editor Catharine Morris considers the difficult genesis of Latvian literature
