Prologue

I know there are many my age who are ashamed of or embarrassed by their parents. Usually, it's just something annoying, like them babying us too much or being too restrictive and nervous, especially when we go off with friends or do something on our own, like driving for the first time. Instructions for raising a child, especially a teenager, are sort of like the instructions my daddy's fencing instructor once gave me when he described how to hold a sword.

"Hold it too softly, and it will fly out of your hand. Hold it too tightly, and it will suffocate and move as cumbersomely as a dying body."

Sometimes, however, our embarrassment and shame come from something quite dramatic and serious, as in stories in which young people discover their fathers or mothers did some terrible things in their youth. They love their parents, and their parents love them, but when they make the horrible discovery, everything changes, regarding not only what they now think of their parents but also what they think of themselves. They feel stained, and tainted. It is as if evil is in their blood.

So it was for me when I forced myself to realize fully what and who my father was and who he, my older sisters, and my nanny were expecting me to become.