The act of writing – of researching, of spending long hours grappling with ideas and how to express them – changes writers of memoir. All three writers approach this possibility of change bravely. Not in the cynical, ‘Yes Minister’ sense of brave. In the genuine meaning of brave. They ask the hard questions, they go to the difficult places, and their answers let them come away cleansed of assumptions, finding new meaning and overturning old beliefs.