The debut novel from the author of Summer at Gaglow, called "a
near-seamless meshing of family feeling, history and imagination" by the
New York Times Book Review
Escaping gray London in 1972, a beautiful, determined mother takes her
daughters, aged 5 and 7, to Morocco in search of adventure, a better
life, and maybe love. Hideous Kinky follows two little English girls
-- the five-year-old narrator and Bea, her seven-year-old sister -- as
they struggle to establish some semblance of normal life on a trip to
Morocco with their hippie mother, Julia. Once in Marrakech, Julia
immerses herself in Sufism and her quest for personal fulfillment, while
her daughters rebel -- the older by trying to recreate her English life,
the younger by turning her hopes for a father on a most unlikely
candidate.
Shocking and wonderful, Hideous Kinky is at once melancholy and
hopeful. A remarkable debut novel from one of England's finest young
writers, Hideous Kinky was inspired by the author's own experiences as
a child. Esther Freud, daughter of the artist Lucian Freud and
great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, lived in Marrakech for one and a
half years with her older sister Bella and her mother. Hideous Kinky
is now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet ("Titanic," "Sense
and Sensibility").
