Context of a Memoir

Here is some biographical context for my novelized memoir, Portraits from Paris: School and Travel Remembered from the City of Light.

Time-present is based on a journal I wrote by a window in the Louvre. It records the years 2019-24 when Nicki and I lived in Paris. The foreground involves discovering the city. The background includes the aftermath of the Brexit vote; the Covid pandemic; Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine; the death of Elizabeth II, and the opening of the Paris Olympics.

Each Paris chapter segues into a travel memory, 1979-2019. The in-between chapters trace my boarding school years, 1969-1978. While the Paris experience is factual, and the travel memories are creative journalism, the boarding chapters are third person and fictionalized. When I look back on that distant past fact and imagination entwine.

A common factor tethers these three strands: my journey toward becoming an oil painter.

My brother, sister and I grew up in the Surrey countryside. Aged eight, I followed my brother to boarding school in Sussex. Oil painting eventually provided solace from the brutal environment and prolonged incarceration. Released in late adolescence, I embraced the freedom of travel. Travel and portraiture tangentially connect. My previous books are critical studies of American writers, but incorporate both portraiture and memoir. Portraits from Paris is a series of depictions of Paris and other cities, of people and places, and of the kinds of masters and boys I observed at boarding school.

Boarding School, Art, Memory & Portraits from Paris

I recently discussed the boarding experience and Portraits from Paris with Chris Braitch of Seen & Heard. You can find our conversation here.

Seen & Heard blog
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