Book: The Good Daughter
Author: Jasmin Darznik
Publisher: The Grand Central Publishing Company
The Good Daughter, A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik is a superb example of how life is translated into narrative.
Raised in California, Darznik never imagined that her mother Lili lived another separate life in Iran.
On her German father’s death she discovers a photograph of her mother being married at 14. Then in a series of tapes she learns about life in Iran, her mother’s highly abusive marriage and her own sister.
She learns how the affections of a German engineer and war changed her and her mother’s life forever.
The core of this beautifully written memoir is a story about four generations of women.
Their lives in Iran are strikingly similar and despite joyous family moments, are always tinged with entrapment.
The advantage of the other “good daughter”, who Lili had to leave in her father’s care as the law there demands, helps create a picture of what Darznik’s life could have been had her mother not left Iran. The Good Daughter provides a window on another world and is well worth reading.