Underclass is Dr Jessica Taylor’s memoir of growing up poor on a British council estate, in a world shaped by violence, coercion, addiction, shame, instability and the cruelties of class.

Told through sharp, vivid fragments, it follows her from childhood and adolescence through survival, education, motherhood, work, and eventually becoming a psychologist and outspoken advocate for women and girls subjected to violence and trauma.

It is not a neat “escape story”, which is the main reason it works. Taylor writes about class not as branding or background colour, but as the thing that enters the body, the room, the expectations placed on you, and the ways people misread you once you begin to move between worlds. Raw, angry, funny and politically blunt, this is memoir as evidence, not confession.

First UK hardback edition published by Constable in 2024. Good used condition with light shelf wear and handling to the cover and edges; clean internally.