Product Description

Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a 1960s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum it is not just an escape from the grinding conventions of English life but a quest for personal fulfilment; her children, however, seek something more solid and stable amidst the shifting desert sands. ‘Just open the book and begin, and instantly you will be first of all charmed, then intrigued and finally moved by this fascinating story’ Spectator.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20909 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
Life on the road in Morocco in the 1960s with an eccentric hippie mother, as seen through the eyes of her five-year-old daughter. This first novel is funny, sparkling, and utterly convincing. Don't miss it. (Kirkus UK)

A young English child recounts travels and a lengthy sojourn in North Africa with her freedom-loving mother and security-seeking older sister - in the fiction debut of a London-born actress. The narrator - who turns five during the novel - has been born into such chaos that she takes it for granted. (The book's title comes from the only words spoken by the mentally and physically declining wife of one of Mum's boyfriends; unaware of the woman's suffering, the narrator and sister Bea turn Hideous! Kinky! into magic words for a game of tag.) In Morocco, the girls make friends with beggars, run about barefoot, dirty, and caftan-clad; they also eat hashish candy, live with the poor, have henna hair treatments from prostitute neighbors, travel with Bilal - the street entertainer who becomes Mum's lover - and go to Algeria (Bea refuses, so Mum simply leaves her behind) to seek Sufi wisdom. Throughout here, Mum repeatedly puts her family at risk - but without worse consequence than Bea seeking stability with a missionary and the narrator hoping Bilal will be her real father; the adventure therefore ends up seeming rather benign. The narrative seems too detailed, logical, and rich in cultural information to come from a five-year-old, while the more credible lack of perspective blunts any real understanding of the impact on the child. The potential tension between the girl's matter-of-fact account and the reader's presumed alarm rarely materializes. Best as travelogue: a fluently written inside view of Morocco. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Esther Freud was born in 1963 and lives in London. Her previous novels are Hideous Kinky, which was made into a film starring Kate Winslet, Peerless Flats, Gaglow and The Wild.