Our lives were not like that, no.' Trapped in the tight web of a religious community in mid-century Tehran, women became cruel, using men's rules to subjugate and dominate other women, grasping for some semblance of power within their own limited realm. Because we couldn't just do what you do here - forget your name and who you belong to. 'If you want to know my story,' says the voice on the tapes, 'you have to know about Avenue Moniriyeh, about your grandmother Kobra and your grandfather Sohrab, and what Iran was then. These old-fashioned cassettes relay the story that Darznik's mother could not bear to tell her daughter in person. Shortly thereafter, the audio tapes begin arriving in the mail. After helping her mother move out of the family home, she returns to Princeton. Darznik, still mourning her father's death, chooses not to pursue the matter.

Lili grabs it, saying the picture is from a past that does not concern her. More astonished than horrified, Darznik confronts her mother with the photograph. Upon closer inspection, she also sees that the man her young Iranian mother is standing next to is not Darznik's German father. Staring at the photograph, Darznik realizes that this is her own mother, Lili. She stands awkwardly next to a man wearing a tuxedo and a grey fedora. She is made-up and dressed in bridal satin. The young girl in the photo is no more than 14 years old. I might easily have mistaken it for just another old photograph, but this one was nothing like the others.' Its edges were tattered and a long white crease coursed through the image. 'Like all the photographs that came with us when we left Iran,' Darznik begins,'this one was as supple and as thick as leather. These women have forged ahead into what one might call 'Mary Karr territory' - the kind of devil-may-care, tell-all recollections that jumpstarted the current explosion of memoirs in this country. Exile seems to have emboldened these writers, giving them the courage to dispense with the traditional Iranian idea of abroo - the age-old obligation of saving face at all costs. THE PAST DECADE HAS seen a surge of memoirs written by Iranian woman in exile, many of whom share their stories at the peril of angering or shaming the clan.

Jasmin darznik the good daughter