Audrey Thomas has made her bondage as daughter into an entire book [Songs My Mother Taught Me]. It is justifiable to describe it as Thomas' bondage, not that of a character: the heroine is called Isobel Cleary, but [the biographical details connect]…. (p. 46)

Warne, Isobel's father, an ardent Mason, a schoolteacher who puts on slang to gab with gas station attendants and the sellers of bait for the trout in his father-in-law's lake, is too improvident to look after his family without slipped twenties from his sister and an inherited house.

But it's more than Warne's improvidence that makes Clara Cleary, Isobel's mother, a screaming hysteric, a whiner, a fat eater of chocolates and reader of ladies' magazines on her bed. Clara depends on appearances…. Nonetheless, appearances don't retrieve for Clara the status she thinks she has lost in marriage with Warne….

Clara despises Warne as a man...