Full Marks for Trying: An Unlikely Journey from the Raj to the Rag Trade

In this breezy memoir, fashion editor Keenan (Diplomatic Baggage) details her early childhood in India in the waning years of the British Raj, and then coming of age in postwar England and becoming a journalist in 1960s London. With her father, an Englishman, stationed in India, Keenan and her two sisters grew up in Ambala, considering it "home." It certainly felt more like home than drab London with its food rations and general restrictions. They returned to England in 1948, when Keenan was eight. She details a colorful childhood full of make-believe games (and looking out for snakes) with cousins, followed by finishing school in Paris. Soon she was on her way to working in the fashion world as a writer, though women were seen as qualified only for secretarial work. After enduring menial typing jobs, she found a position as a fashion assistant at the Daily Express, which was the cutting-edge newspaper at the time. She moved on to a similar position at the Sunday Times (where her sister worked), an experience she likens to The Devil Wears Prada, and in 1961, at 21, she became the Times's young fashion editor, an enviable post that brought her into the orbit of fashion icons such as Jean Shrimpton and Vidal Sassoon. Keenan's witty, touching reminiscences about her early life will please more than just fashion fans. (Sept.)