This book includes an introduction by Thomas Kellein. In the drawings and sculptures of Louise Bourgeois, there recurs the theme of the artist's family and her fears of failure: to not have been born as a boy, to not be needed, to be only a pawn in her parents' difficult life, and to not succeed as a wife, a mother and most of all as an artist. This book collects her family-related works, in crude, figurative sketches, embroidered soft-sculptures and installation 'cells', in which she seeks to tap into a great love of family. There are few artists prepared to delve as deeply or as radically as Bourgeois, in deliberately overstepping the boundaries of intimacy. "I am never literal. Never, ever, ever. You achieve nothing by being literal, you just waste energy. You have to work with analogies, interpretations and make all sorts of leaps." - Louise Bourgeois.