Hideous Kinky

ISBN: 1572700998

Author: Esther Freud

Condition: Used

Review "Hideous Kinky has a delightful lightness of being... It is written with the art that conceals art." -- Times Literary Supplement"Hideous Kinky is Ms. Freud's song of childhood exile, a paean to the troublesome beauty of life on the run." -- New York Times Book Review"A novel as subtle and mysterious as a North African stew." -- Entertainment Weekly Product Description When her mother decides to take her and her sister away from life as they know it and move to Morocco, a five-year-old English school girl embarks on an adventure-filled romp through northern Africa. From Publishers Weekly In this semi-autobiographical novel based on her own childhood, Freud (Summer at Gaglow), tells the story of Julia, a hippie mother traveling with her young daughters, Lucia and Bea, through North Africa in the 1960s. (The girls, true to their impish nature, love to use the words "hideous" and "kinky.") Events are described through the eyes of five-year-old Lucia, and therefore rely more intensely on sensations than on concrete details. This experiential quality translates well to audio in Freud's tenderly evocative reading. As the family travels from Tangier to Marrakech, by rail and sometimes hitchhiking, Lucia gives her child's-eye impressions of street performers, beggars and holy men. As audio, the telling is richly atmospheric and exotic, with a strong undercurrent of wistfulness that comes from a little girl always questioning her mother's actions. Based on the 1992 Pillar hardcover. (Apr.) FYI: A movie based on the book, directed by Gillies MacKinnon and starring Kate Winslet as Julia, recently opened in theaters. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Esther Freud, great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, lives in London and has worked in theater as an actress and writer. Her most recent books are Peerless Flats and Summer at Gaglow. From AudioFile This novel by Sigmund Freud's great-granddaughter has been adapted for the big screen (one of its stars is TITANIC'S Kate Winslet), but this delicate story may be better suited to the audio format. Set in Marrakesh in the late 1960s, it's the story of two young sisters who must deal with--or, to put it another way, tame--their rambunctious, flighty mother. Freud narrates the story in a crisp, clear voice; her gentle British accent is ideally suited to this somewhat meandering exploration of the troubles of childhood. The audiobook suffers from perhaps a few too many slow spots, but patient listeners will be rewarded with an entertaining few hours. D.P. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine