Until her mother died, Susannah Walker had no idea how much of a hoarder she had become. In the months following the death, Susannah had to sort through a dilapidated house filled to the brim with rubbish and treasures, in search of a woman she'd never really known. Her hope was to piece together her mother's life and discover her reasons for hoarding, in her last chance to understand their troubled relationship. What emerged from the mess of scattered papers, discarded photographs and an extraordinary amount of stuff was the history of a sad and fractured family, haunted by dead children, divorces and alcohol.The Life of Stuff is a moving memoir about mourning and the shoring up of possessions against the losses and griefs of life, a deeply personal story that raises universal questions about what makes us who we are. What do our possessions say about us? Why do we project such meaning on to them? And what cruel twist turns someone who simply enjoys having objects around them into the kind of person who hoards compulsively, ending their days in abject squalor?