We don't talk about it. Ever.

In 1980's Apartheid Cape Town, five-year-old Desiree-Anne is grappling with how she is going to turn her tar baby doll's skin into lily-white. She doesn't know how to force her father to stop drinking or gambling or make her mother love her or get the boys and men to stop touching her in secret. She learns how to soothe the pain through secret masturbation and lying.

As she grows up, she begins to understand the rules of living in her depressed family and fractured community.

"Was I in trouble? Were they finally going to make sense of everything that had been happening to me? But no one said a word. I soon learned that this was how it worked in my family. We Don't Talk About It.Ever."

In her teens, laden with the awkwardness of bushy, unruly hair and a body rounder than a Womble's, Desiree-Anne is forced to confront her "coloured identity crisis". She turns to self-harm, disordered eating, the thrill of petty theft and escapism through books and acting. Although she wins a place to study drama at UCT, sensing her parents can't afford the tuition, she leaves for the UK where she gets lost in clubs and pills. On her return to South Africa, she embraces the Ecstasy trance club scene but when she meets Darren, a heroin addict, her search for love descends into a hellishly self-destructive spiral as an intravenous heroin addict.

In this harrowing debut memoir on the darkness of addiction and finding recovery, Desiree-Anne uncovers her real voice to brilliantly write about things that were previously left unspoken.

In Apartheidul din Cape Town din 1980, Desiree-Anne, in varsta de cinci ani, se lupta cu modul in care isi va transforma pielea papusii de gudron in alb-crin. Nu stie cum sa-l forteze pe tatal ei sa nu mai bea sau sa joace sau sa o faca pe mama ei sa o iubeasca sau sa-i faca pe baieti si barbati sa nu o mai atinga in secret.