Heather Taylor-Johnson in-conversation with Ashley Kalagian Blunt

Debbie's earliest memory of her mother is that her mother was not there, but any story of neglect always has two sides. When Debbie's daughter, Heather, says she wants to write a book about her upbringing, Debbie begins to string together jagged memories of growing up with Stella, and it's proving more painful than she could've ever imagined. Part memoir, part biography, part imagination, Little Bit is a story with a third side. Told in the alternating perspectives of Debbie and Stella, Heather writes the story of her mother's and grandmother's lives, where addiction is rife and regret is a constant, and where survival for a woman in a man's world is anything but straightforward. Fiction or nonfiction, this is a book that cannot be categorised and will not be quiet.

Little Bit is Heather Taylor-Johnson’s third novel. Her last, Jean Harley was Here, was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New…