An American Morning Glory in a Persian Rose Garden is a fascinating memoir of an American woman, Shelley Ann Gray, who met her future husband as a teenager in California in the mid-1960s. He was a college student studying in Southern California. Their friendship developed into a deep, caring relationship. Eventually, Shelley traveled to Tehran, where they were married. Her memoir focuses on her journey and development as an individual within the framework of her life in Iran both before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The memoir further reveals how the environment was instrumental in providing opportunities for a sense of autonomy.