A much lauded anthropologist recounts stories from throughout his line in much the same way as a wistful novelist would, watching himself as if he were someone else. This memoir recaptures meaningful moments from the author's life: as his childhood on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, his psychiatrist father's early death, his years at school in Switzerland and then at Harvard in the 1960s, his love affairs, his own teaching and his far-flung travels. Taken together, these stories have the power of a nothing-taken-for-granted vision.
