Can the right pair of shoes make anyone feel beautiful? Franny is constantly embarrassed by two things in her life. One is her right foot, which curls in from a birth defect, so she has to wear ugly, heavy orthopedic shoes. And the other is her mother Margaret: beautiful, extravagant, flamboyant-,and in their small Ohio town, mortifying . Franny's first school dance is a disaster, so Margaret announces her latest crazy plan: They will travel to Italy to meet Salvatore Ferragamo, who will sculpt a pair of slippers especially for Franny. The idea is outrageous. The trip is expensive. And the experience changes Franny's life forever. A novelist of rare style and wry insight offers a fictionalized page from her own autobiography--a tale of mothers, daughters, journeys, Italy and lovely Ferragamo shoes.