Sophia Jansson was the young girl who inspired the bohemian idyll in her aunt Tove Jansson's classic novel, The Summer Book. But there was an absence that was neither written nor spoken about: her mother, Nita, who died when she was six.In this startling memoir, Jansson uncovers her mother's short and volatile life, and the traumas passed across generations in impoverished, pre-war Finland. Written with a rare transparency and tenderness, she charts a course through three significant islands - Tonga, the South Sea island to which her father Lars and Tove dreamtof emigrating; Ibiza, where her parents attempted family life; and the tiny island in the gulf of Finland that has provided a lifelong summer home.

Sophia Jansson was the young girl who inspired the bohemian idyll in her aunt Tove Jansson's classic novel, The Summer Book. But there was an absence that was neither written nor spoken about: her mother, Nita, who died when she was six.In this startling memoir, Jansson uncovers her mother's short and volatile life, and the traumas passed across generations in impoverished, pre-war Finland. Written with a rare transparency and tenderness, she charts a course through three significant islands - Tonga, the South Sea island to which her father Lars and Tove dreamtof emigrating; Ibiza, where her parents attempted family life; and the tiny island in the gulf of Finland that has provided a lifelong summer home.