A recent experience has caused me to consider yet again the difficulties inherent in writing about someone else, above all a friend. An essay I worked on for two weeks caused such distress to a good friend that I abandoned the project before
Memoir
Soundtrack
Think of a song, and chances are you’ll think of a moment or a someone. Think of another song, and you’ll probably think of another moment, another someone. A piece of music might pop up when you call to mind a parent, a child, a friend, a certain
Excerpts from My Childhood Memoir
This 75-page compilation brings together excerpts I previously posted individually from the childhood sections of my unpublished memoir, Spiral to Edinburgh. The first excerpt goes back to when I was five or six. The next series relates my boarding
Dad: My Memorial Speech for Harold Anthony Spratt
Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, “The medium is the message.” My own experience suggests that theater can compete with the message. When a talking head appears on a political show on television, a viewer’s reaction might be less to the words they
The Last Goodbye
In my childhood, I had many painful goodbyes with Dad, including two during my four months in hospitals when I was thirteen. One, the evening after I’d had a long operation, was compelled by the visiting hours that English hospitals strictly enforce.
In My Beginning
Last Saturday, here in Brooklyn, the wind brought a freshness to an afternoon that otherwise would have been too hot. It brought to mind a late afternoon in Montreal forty-five years ago, even though this is now mid-spring and that was oppressive