“Don’t you have any happy memories?” Ellen Stafford is asked by a psychiatrist with whom she is discussing her marriage. Apparently she doesn’t, for her memoir is an unrelieved chronicle of woes. These include poverty, alienation from her parents, loss of innocence and political idealism, sexually transmitted diseases, babies born dead and prematurely, and a husband so awful that the term “abusive” seems too mild.

Eventually, on the advice of a doctor, she left the marriage and went on to work as an editor (she edited Pierre Berton’s first book while working at McClelland & Stewart), a newspaper columnist, and a novelist. But those activities are outside the scope of a memoir, which is simply to portray a disastrous marriage against the backdrop of the first half of the century.

The compelling question for me (and I found Angela’s Ashes very hard going) is how this account of misery and bitterness can be so riveting? One reason is that the style is quick-paced, unadorned, and direct. Another is that, although Stafford was born in 1910, her story resonates for later generations.

Her book’s title comes from the song “I’ll be loving you always,” and she describes the aphrodisiac quality of the music that lured young girls into mindless trances with its insistent refrain of love, love, love. So many fell victim, as she did, to unrealistic, romantic dreams.

What I admire most is Stafford’s refusal to compromise by providing the obligatory dollops of humour or upbeat episodes in her grim story. The awful marriage corroded every aspect of her life – her relationships with her parents, children, friends, and political colleagues, and her own physical health. When a psychiatrist or anyone else insists that there must have been some moments of joy, she answers with a firm “no!”