FAMILY VALUES

Abstract

Jane Miller, erstwhile teacher of English literature and more recently Professor at London University's Institute of Education, welcomes me into her charming basement kitchen in Fulham. It is a richly painted room filled with lovely things, a plate of figs on the table, family photographs on the dresser and paintings on the walls, a well-stocked biscuit tin, pretty china from which we drink our coffee. It is homely and welcoming and well-ordered, and probably rather different from the kitchen of her childhood home.

Jane Miller has recently published Relations, a study of some two generations of her family—a family as atypical as it is representative, shot through with a kaleidoscopic array of cultural influences and accomplishments and conjuring up a detailed snapshot of a very particular English middle-class milieu.