The market is competitive in books about misery right now, or “hot”, as they say in the art world. In today’s confessional culture, personal disasters appeal for our attention. “I’ve got cancer!” “My baby was abducted!” “My father molested me!” Amid the wails, Ariel Levy’s memoir stands out. A talented journalist – a staff writer at The New Yorker – she knows how to tell a story and keep it brief. She works on the principle that if one catastrophe doesn’t impress the reader, she has several others to call forth. Page one starts off: “In the last few months, I have lost my son, my spouse and my house.” Beat that.

Stylistically, it might seem like a gaffe, letting the cat out of the bag so soon, but Levy is not interested in withholding. Having set out her stall on the opening page, she lets the tension build elsewhere. As we know what is going to happen, more or less, it is all about when, why and what did Ariel do next?