I’m not a huge fan of misery memoirs – stories of people who somehow manage to survive horrifically traumatic childhoods. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt’s 1996 memoir, is regarded as an influential early contributor to the genre, but Christina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest, an exposé published in 1978 by the adopted daughter of movie star Joan Crawford, got things started nearly two decades earlier.

As a parent, I simply can’t comprehend how anyone could deliberately inflict such sustained pain and terror on a child. I’ve therefore steered away from misery memoirs.

So I was more than a little apprehensive about this book – but I’m glad I persisted. It’s a profoundly disturbing account of a childhood of deprivation, isolation and endurance spent in the north of France, but it’s also a deeply moving story of resilience and the power of the human spirit to find beauty and love amid the bleakest circumstances.

Maude Julien’s father, Louis Didier, ‘adopted’ her mother, Jeannine, at the age of six and provided her with a comprehensive classical education through to the age of 28, when he married her and she gave birth to their daughter, Maude.

With Maude’s arrival, Louis’s plan to raise a so-called superhuman began. The ‘training program’ that Louis put his daughter through for more than a decade, seemingly with the tacit approval of her mother, was simply appalling. Maude was deprived of even the most basic affection and was subjected to a bizarre regime of tests and challenges within the confines of the isolated mansion that was her home. Despite these ordeals, she somehow not only survived but also escaped this hellish upbringing, with hope still in her heart and a capacity to love. It’s a remarkable story.

Reviewed by Maryanne Vagg