About the Author

Todd McEwen was born in Southern California in the 1950s. As a child he was interested in comedy and the undersea realm, and was terrified by Bambi. In high school he had his own radio show, interviewing folk singers and puzzle inventors. At college he read Victorian and medieval English literature. He worked in radio, theatre, and the rare books trade before arriving in Scotland in the 1980s. After a spell at Granta, he has often worked as an editor and teacher. His novels include Fisher's Hornpipe, McX- A Romance of the Dour, Who Sleeps with Katz, and The Five Simple Machines.

Reviews

  'A quirky, chewy gallimaufry containing a small jewel, a little masterpiece of a chapter, 'Cary Grant’s Suit,' which lends the book not only its title but also its fundamental claim to your attention . . . If I were compiling a new Oxford Book of Essays, I’d include 'Cary Grant’s Suit' alongside Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and Joan Didion. It’s digressive, surprising, delightful.'
*Telegraph*

'A hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world. Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive, surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). I certainly did.' 
*Phillip Lopate*

‘The book is delightful on the rewards of multiple viewings of the same film and the mastering of its self-contained universe . . .  A wonderfully knowing and vivid piece of time travel.’
*Times Literary Supplement*