''The one truly generous act of my mother's that I could really put my finger on: her leaving me alone.''

So writes Jenny Diski of the parent she has neither seen nor heard from since 1966, the year her father died.

In search of an escape from her suicidal sexually abusive parents, Diski spends her teenage years in the oblivion of heavy drug use and psychiatric wards. As an adult she finds a new haven: the boundless, blank iciness of Antarctica where everything ''is colored white and filled with a singing silence.''

This blistering account interweaves the story of the author's journey to the end of the earth, her daughter's search for Diski's missing mother, and Diski's own search of her memory-hardened heart.