Synopses & Reviews
The acclaimed author of Low Life reinvents the memoir in a cunning, lyrical book that is at once a personal history and a meditation on the construction of identity.
Born in Belgium but raised in New Jersey, Luc Sante transformed himself from a pious, timid Belgian boy into a loutish American adolescent, who eschewed French while fantasizing about the pop star Françoise Hardy. To show how this transformation came about--and why it remained incomplete--The Factory of Facts combines family anecdote and ancestral legend; detailed forays into Belgian history, language, and religion; and deft synopses of the American character.
Review
"'The past is a quiet place,' the author writes, 'where change occurs in increments of glacial slowness.' In this quasi-memoir, more a detective investigation, the author ponders his childhood in Belgium, trying slowly and methodically to put the pieces together. In this thoughtful, lyrical, but also troubling meditation on his origins, the author conceives of the past as a poem, as at best an hypothesis. Forever ironic, Sante conveys his sense of being an alien, which he urges, we all share." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Born in Belgium but raised in New Jersey, Luc Sante transformed himself from a pious, timid Belgian boy into a loutish American adolescent, who eschewed French while fantasizing about a pop star Francoise Hardy. To show how this transformation came about -- and why it remained incomplete -- The Factory of Facts combines family anecdote and ancestral legend; detailed forays into Belgian history, language, and religion, and deft synopses of the American character.
About the Author
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and Evidence. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, a book critic for New York magazine, and a senior contributor to Slate. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
From the Hardcover edition.