“I want to see some history.” -The Sex Pistols, “Holiday in the Sun” (1977) In January 1977, I move from Los Angeles to a fancy, old-fashioned London hotel suite, where I live with my mother and little brother for two months, long enough that we run out of money. We leave the city in March, …
What’s past is prologue.—Shakespeare, The Tempest 1. 365 Clare Island rises like a rumpled green wizard’s hat at the edge of Clew Bay, a single slouching mountain off the Irish coast framed by the open Atlantic. My backpack and I are gliding toward the island’s quay on the afternoon ferry, under wildly bright August sun. …