I was quickly drawn into the pages of this ‘awkward book’ as Oakley has described it. There are several reasons for this – I am a sociologist who shares interests with the author in gender, family lives and matters of method and I know some of the contemporary academic characters who populate some sections of the book (and have made a guess about others). But mostly I wanted to turn the pages because they provide an unflinching account of Oakley's childhood, family life and career alongside an intriguing view of her father's life, the eminent academic Richard Titmuss. Others, I think, will be similarly drawn in. The chapters include a mix of anecdote, reflections, and carefully researched detail focusing on Titmuss, his family, the influential figures of the period who surrounded him and Oakley's life from early childhood, in the house which now bears a blue commemorative plaque in her father's name. What unfolds is a compelling, sometimes uncomfortable and yet fascinating account of family life and growing up in post-world war two Britain where patriarchy is assumed and accepted and shapes the everyday household arrangements and Titmuss's working life. Histories are plotted of people and disciplinary developments, but disquietingly Oakley's own childhood as an only child in her ‘awkwardly shaped and unfriendly bedroom’ is somehow unexpected. A paucity of warmth and emotional generosity pervades the Titmuss household in which feelings of exclusion and loneliness can only be understood as they are reflected upon many years later. At times Oakley's description of her childhood at home has the claustrophobic feel of a D. H. Lawrence novel rather than the intellectual sparkle and assuredness that might have been assumed to reside there.

The father and daughter in the title of the book have both contributed in historically significant and different ways to the social sciences and fabric of British society through their intellectual endeavours. But these achievements are not the focus of the book and are easy to put to one side as the detailed layers of historical account, family relationships and anecdote are mulled over. It is the desire for – and outward achievement of – upward social mobility on the part of Oakley's mother, which helps to explain some of the awkwardness which runs through the pages on family life (‘We were the inbetweens’ p.63). Indeed aspects of the book can be read as a finely observed case study of social class, family, kinship, parenting and childrearing practices illuminating the importance of a sense of belonging, identity and selfhood. Oakley's mother sets about running a middle class home aided by ‘a succession of working-class women who came from the cheap terraced streets of Acton in their pink overalls’ (possibly my own grandmother who lived in those ‘cheap terraced streets’ at that time). But throughout there is a sense that Oakley's mother is always striving for, rather than living her life, supporting her husband, ignoring her child and all the while leading a lonely existence isolated by class aspirations. What emerges is a sad tale of gendered domesticity defined by marriage and narrowly defined opportunities for women at the time. It is interesting then that it is marriage in 1964 which liberates Oakley from the blue plaque house.

The book across its 16 chapters does much more than is conveyed in the descriptions above and readers will no doubt dip in and out of these chapters and in the process learn much about the period, the welfare state, social policy and Titmuss's life and actions at the LSE, social work and women, the development and demise of academic careers, of disciplinary challenges, of intellectual figures and debate, intrigues, falling outs, loves, arguments, power and much, much more. The eclectic mix of memories and reflections does not have to be read chronologically, but dipped into as the twists and turns of many lives are pondered over. The book is spikey rather than nostalgic and honest rather than cosy. An impressive amount of careful research has gone into this readable book such that we get the back story on even minor figures (relative to the whole) where Oakley feels this to be appropriate. Digging into areas of family history Oakley finds alcoholism, maternal neglect leading to the death of a child and family abandonment. Her evocative descriptions bring characters and scenes to life, so that you can almost smell the pipe smoke which circulates as the ‘Titmice’ men gather to talk of things of import: ‘Men could be intellectually interesting. Women hardly ever’ (p.98).

A book of this kind is based on many different sources including personal recollection, diaries, photographs and historical documents and as Oakley notes ‘interpretation is always key’ (p. 245) as she provides an alternative version of the public image of her father as ‘a benign cat loving professor’. Interpretation means that other versions of events are of course possible, even likely, as we make sense of our lives and those of others around us from different perspectives at different times. But this does not detract from the content, which through its careful presentation of the interwoven lives of a father and daughter and other key figures, enacts and illuminates the powerful ways in which structural features and associated powers have shaped/suffocated individual lives, laying bare troubling inequalities. Today it would be unthinkable not to include the lens of gender alongside class and ‘race’ as variables in social science research and Oakley has been key in challenging and reorienting how we view and research the social world. Both the daughter and father in the title of this book are / have been eminent in their fields, and this book, which takes stock of their intriguing lives, is a highly recommended read.