A Garden In The Desert

In Baghdad, Jasmin sold steaming kebabs and Johnnie Walker Black in the swirling shadows of her erstwhile penthouse. The sting of shrapnel, smoke, and convoy sirens were her constant companion. Along with the nagging shame of living today among pimps and parasites. She stole another glance upward, her fifth in one hour, while a tea drinker waved his sweaty dinars in her face. A Garden In The Desert relives the days of Saddam Hussein's fallen harem, the Perfume Palace. This untold story of a lost decade is recounted from the mouth of former "resident" to an American Soldier, both winnowing away a year in an Iraqi desert outpost at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.