James Grant

This story of James Grant, his family and the class they belong to is not of our time. That class still exists and its prosperity is unabated. But its position in the American national psyche is greatly diminished, its glitter dulled by the passage of time – and a change in the mores of society as a whole. But I have written it because I believe the foibles of the human heart and its redeeming strengths possess a universality which overcomes the angst of changing times. I have set the stage in an unfamiliar time to mine. Whether my characters that stride upon that cluttered stage would remain credible in a stark, modern setting, I cannot judge. I had no one in particular in mind in devising them. They are as the ghosts that populate our dreams – a compendium of hints and reflections of those who have crossed our consciousness in the ill-remembered past.

Stanislas Yassukovich was born in Paris of a White Russian émigré father and a French mother. Settling in the United States at the outset of World War II, he was brought up on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., attending Green Vale School there, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and Harvard College. After service in the U.S Marine Corps, he joined White, Weld & Co., New York investment bankers and was posted to its London office. Yassukovich subsequently formed and managed European Banking Company, became a Deputy Chairman of The Stock Exchange, London, Chairman of the Securities & Futures Authority, and, finally, Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe, Middle East & Africa. After service as a non-executive director on various boards, he retired to the South of France. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is married to the former Diana Townsend, and has three children: Tatyana, Michael and Nicholas.