I was born in Washington, D.C., where my father was working for the Federal Trade Commission, and my mom was editor for the National Council of Catholic Women, but my parents were simply awaiting my birth before moving back to their roots in Rhode Island to raise their family.
My background educationally is physics and economics, and I grew up in sort of an engineering environment - my father is an electromechanical engineer. And so there were lots of engineery things around me.
I love a good breakfast - grits and eggs, French toast, turkey bacon. My grandmother on my father's side used to make tea cakes, and her breakfasts were unbelievable. There was fresh ham, and she would go out to the yard to get fresh eggs. She lived in rural Louisiana, and we'd spend summers with her.
We were Orthodox Jews, but we really didn't deserve it. I mean, bacon - my father said, 'Don't put bacon in the house,' but we had bacon. We didn't keep kosher. And we observed which today would be Conservative Jews. But in those days, we belonged to an Orthodox temple. So we made out we were Orthodox Jews, but we really weren't.
My father was a bad boy, a rascal. That's what him do for a living. He just go around and have a million and one children!
I came from a single parent household. And I had a bad example of what a husband and father could be and how irresponsible a father could be. So because of that, I didn't want to get married or have kids.
I don't think my father was a bad man, all in all.
Now that I'm a parent, I understand why my father was in a bad mood a lot.
When you're around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you're supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.
My parents took an interest in nothing, at home no books, no records. My mother and my father are the emblem of indifference, dryness and bad taste. My father is also terribly stingy, in life as well as in feelings: I have never seen him filling up the bathtub.
I remember the bad times as a succession of painful emotional snapshots: Me walking into the library at 24 Sussex, seeing my mother in tears, and hearing her talk about leaving while my father stood facing her, stern and ashen.
I inherited that calm from my father, who was a farmer. You sow, you wait for good or bad weather, you harvest, but working is something you always need to do.
Yes, and I had pimples so badly it used to make me so shy. I used not to look at myself. I'd hide my face in the dark, I wouldn't want to look in the mirror and my father teased me and I just hated it and I cried everyday.
I played from the time I was seven years old. My father was my first baseman coach. I had opportunities that I never really pursued - with some Miami teams and a few larger colleges, and then I ended up bailing and began cooking.
My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave.
It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.
My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.
My father was a lesson. He had his own bakery, and it was closed one day a week, but he would go anyway. He did it because he really loved his bakery. It wasn't a job.
I was left £50 when I was ten by a fairly distant cousin, which my father invested in GEC shares on my behalf. I became interested in the market and was given some more shares by my father, which is when I began looking to see how the shares were performing and learning how to read company reports, balance sheets, and so on in order to gauge that.
My father, a Russian translator, wanted to distinguish me by calling me Misha, the Russian diminutive of his name, Michael. My name and work as a writer specialising in the Balkans has created a myth that I have Slavic connections, but actually I am British.
