Hideous Kinky

A five-year-old narrator. A hippie mother chasing Sufism. Marrakech in the 1970s, seen from knee height. Esther Freud's autobiographical novel gets the child's perspective exactly right — the souks are a forest of legs, the call to prayer is the neighborhood alarm clock, and the taste of sweet mint tea is the closest thing to stability. Her mother floats between spiritual teachers and unreliable men while two small daughters navigate a world they did not choose and do not fully understand. The novel is warm, funny, and quietly devastating. Marrakech has never been written about from a stranger or more honest angle.