In her bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi opened her world to us, offering a vibrant portrait of women s lives in Iran and an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction (the New York Times). In this stunning new book, Nafisi returns to Iran and her childhood to deliver an exquisite and moving portrait of a family s life, a life lived in thrall to Nafisi s powerful mother, and the mesmerizing fictions she created about herself, her past, and the family s life. Part detective story and part portrait of an exceptional marriage and mother-daughter struggle, the book is also a deeply personal reflection on women s choices, and on how Azar Nafisi found inspiration for a different kind of life in the stories of women in The Persian Book of Kings. Writing of the women who came to her mother s coffee salons, Nafisi explores the perverse effects of society s restrictions, in things everyone knew but were silent about.In this stunning book, a gifted storyteller once again masterfully uses her own life to transform the way we see the world, and reminds us why we read in the first place.