Daughter Of The Queen Of Sheba - Softcover

Belongs on the shelf of classic memoirs, alongside THE LIAR'S CLUB and ANGELA'S ASHES (NEW YORK TIMES)

A moving and illuminating portrait of manic depression with its crazed highs and fearsome lows (SCOTSMAN)

A tragicomedy ... A classic ... Darkly humorous ... tender without being mawkish (TATLER)

What courage it must have taken to write this memoir. And what generosity Lyden has - she seems never to have stopped loving Sheba through all the wrecked years of her young life (THE TIMES)

''I am the Queen of Sheba, my mother announced to me in a regal voice''. She was wrapped in toga of bedsheets, with eye-pencil hieroglyphics drawn on her bare arms, a tiara on her head. I was twelve years old.' When she was well, Jacki Lyden's mother was a pretty but powerless suburban 60s housewife, very much under the thumb of a cruel doctor husband (Jacki's stepfather), but when she was gripped by the illness (later diagnosed as manic-depression) she got revenge for all the disappointments in her life. She became, among others, Marie Antoniette, dressed in Victorian bustiers, spent money she didn't have on fabulous cars and presents, painted slogans on the furniture and murals on the walls, went places she wouldn't normally have dared and - became someone she wanted to be. She frightened her three girls, but her bids for power fascinated and inspired them too. If Jacki's mother could escape to exotic places, so would she. In her 20s Jacki set out on her own impassioned journeys - she became a radio journalist, fearlessly reporting from war zones. But always her mother's fantasies remained a frustrating and compelling lure.