Memories of an Alaskan childhood fill the early pages and we are warned that although outdoor lore is presented - such as running away very fast from a grizzly encounter - it may not ensure your survival. STILL POINTS NORTH starts with Leigh, torn from Anchorage by her parents' divorce, returning to her dad for the summer. She has unexplained rashes and stress eating disorders, now she's expected to live in a house with no furniture. But that's okay, because she's going to be outside a lot. Her father is a surgeon, and every afternoon he takes his daughter out fishing salmon.

In the 1980's oil pours money into the local economy with the building of pipelines. Leigh, aged eight, spends her days gutting, freezing and smoking salmon. She returns to her mother, in Baltimore, and the boon of museums. Suddenly her mother is glamorous, where in Alaska she wore a down vest and jeans. Leigh's behind in schooling, friendless and strange, and her parents view each other with acrimony. Alaska seems perfect on her next trip - but Dad has a new lady in his life, and Leigh isn't being asked.

Grown up, Leigh works in New York for a travel magazine, taking trips and getting paid very little, and deters friendships. She continually thinks back to her teen years with new half-siblings and a father who ended up taking anger management therapy, and mopes that she had such a bad time. This does come across to me as self-determining, since her stepmother seemed pretty decent to her and she got to go to Cornell. While people do have difficult childhoods, there is no rule that says they have to drag that time around with them forever. Leigh and her mother are also incapable of moving on to an adult relationship, fighting over petty incidents from the eighties like a broken hairbrush. Then again, her mother bought antiques rather than pay for babysitting or new school uniforms, complaining that the child support wasn't enough.

I was hoping for a vibrant tale of Alaskan life, but Leigh Newman seems rather to be engaged in a therapy exercise. Rather than celebrate her travel job by being interesting, she uses it to deter men asking for dates - I'm going to be in Canada, then Italy, she tells a nice man, then has a panic attack on her wedding day. STILL POINTS NORTH is a descriptive tale of the generational cycle of child-rearing and relationships, and will be of interest to social workers and anyone who's lived through a difficult upbringing.