Coming-of-age memoir. Darkly humorous vignettes, seen through the eyes of Nicholas, the son of a television writer. Nicholas watches his dad try to rescue a disastrous marriage. Albeit, a losing battle. What strikes him as entertaining, however, is their game of "Poltergeist" whereby household objects aimed at each other, fly across the room on a regular basis. In the absence of a nurturing mother, Nicholas is raised by a succession of au-pair girls, who mostly flee in terror within the first week of employment or else fall in love with his charismatic father; the last of which eventually marries him. The story is interspersed with iconic figures who pass by the house for drinks. Artists, sculptors, musicians and writers, all of them alcoholics. After the inevitable divorce, Nicholas's father escapes Britain's tax system, by fleeing to Malta and then Italy. Five years later, money runs out and they are rescued by an Italian countess and repatriated to England. Nicholas, now eighteen, chooses to pursue a film career in Rome. Once there, he finds himself eating cake with Ugo Tognazzi, chatting with Federico Fellini in the men's room at Cinecitta and meeting up with Isabella Rosselini while also looking at mens' bottoms and wondering if he is gay. Disillusioned with Rome, but inspired by his hero, Roman Polanski, Nicholas travels to Warsaw with the intention of going to Polanski's film school in Lódź. Armed with little else but a naïve trust in humanity, he stumbles through a minefield of misadventures (and almost gets murdered in the process) while witnessing first-hand the collapse of Soviet rule. When the borders close, he must find a way back to the West. Armed with little else but a suitcase full of vodka, he attempts to put plan into action.
