Cécile Koch reflects how, with the eyes of a child, she watched her once attractive, charming and witty mother lose control of her life and her family. Partly set off by the marriage to manic/depressive alcoholic who is also addicted to narcotics, the mother lets her own addictions take over, before being defeated by them. Young Cécile, an outsider among her peers, tries to cope with her reality by adjusting it with the help of her vivid phantasy. But when with advancing age she realizes that an internal escape will not suffice, her eagerness to leave home grows. At the age of 14, she runs away to travel with a small circus, earning her keep with the only thing she has – herself. Though torn inside, she decides that anything is better than staying home. An involuntary return shakes the ground beneath her feet, causing her to search for meaning in empty relationships, drug abuse and repeated attempts to take her own life. When her mother dies of liver failure, Cécile manages to turn her life around and begin the road to recovery. This autobiographic novel about a young woman’s relationship to her mother tells of a life without a sheltered childhood and the attempt to seize one’s own destiny through courage and a strong will to live – and the problems that come with these attempts.