Farangi Girl

<DIV><P>Ashley Dartnell's mother was a glamorous American, her father a dashing Englishman, each trying to slough off their past and upgrade to a more romantic and exotic present in Iran. As the story starts, Ashley is eight years old and living in Tehran in the 1960s: the Shah was in power, life for Westerners was rich and privileged. But somehow it didn't all add up to a fairytale. There were bankruptcies and prisons, betrayals and lovers, lies and evasions. And throughout it all, Ashley's passionate and strong-willed mother, Genie. </P><P>Stories of mothers and daughters are some of the most compelling in contemporary memoir, from <I>The Liar's Club </I>and <I>The Glass Castle </I>to <I>Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight</I> and <I>Bad Blood</I>. <I>Farangi Girl</I> deserves to be in their company. It's an honest and endlessly recognisable portrait of a mother by a daughter who loved her (and was loved in return).</P><P>Against this extraordinary background, Ashley's journey into adulthood was more helter-skelter than most and this portrait of a bewitching and endlessly inventive mother is surprising and deeply moving.</P></DIV>