Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lucy 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.

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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 Franoise 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.

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The Factory of Facts

Vintage Books USA

CHAPTER ONE

Resume

I was born on May 25, 1954 in Verviers Belgium, the onlychild of Lucien Mathieu Amelie Sante and Denise LambertineAlberte Marie Ghislaine Nandrin. Following the bankruptcy ofmy father's employer, an iron foundry that manufactured wool-cardingmachinery, and at the suggestion of friends who hademigrated earlier, my parents decided to move to the UnitedStates in search of work. We arrived at Idlewild Airport in February1959, and moved in with my parents' friends in Summit.New Jersey. Prospects were not as bright as they had beendepicted, and that November we sailed back to Belgium, butthe situation there was no better, and early in 1960 we reemigrated.Several more such trips occurred over the next fewyears, spurred by momentary hopes, by the Cuban Missile Crisis,by the illnesses and deaths of my maternal grandparents. Atlength my parents decided to remain in America, at least untilthe time came when they could retire to Belgium.

I was born in 1954 in Verviers. Belgium, the only child ofLucien and Denise Sante. Following the bankruptcy of my father'semployer, an iron foundry that manufactured wool-cardingmachinery, and at the suggestion of my mother'sbrother. Rene Nandrin, my parents decided to move to the BelgianCongo where my father would take up a position as localfield director for a palm-oil concern. In February 1959, we arrivedin Coquilhatville, on the banks of the Congo River, andmoved into a company-owned villa in the European district.Suddenly we had servants and a chauffeured car. On the otherhand. I came down with a succession of ailments aggravated bythe climate and spent most of my time in bed. Barely a yearlater the Belgian government announced that the Congo wouldbe granted its independence that June, and my parents friendsand colleagues began to show signs of alarm, sending prizedpossessions, for example, back to their families in Belgium.Emotions had risen to a point of panic by late May, when thefirst general elections were held. My parents and their friendsdismissed their servants, fearing treachery. My father barricadedmy mother and me and would himself not leave thehouse without a loaded revolver on his hip. Violent incidentsbegan occurring, most of them in the south of the country butsome close enough that my father, over my mother's protests.sent us home. He followed a little over a month later, whenfighting had become widespread; his employer turned overlocal control to native African managers. Connections made inthe Congo led my father to a job with the Ministry of Commerce.and we moved to Berchem-Ste. Agathe, a suburb ofBrussels, where I recovered and later found I had a surprisingaptitude for competitive cycling.

I was born in 1954 in Verviers, Belgium, the only child ofLucien and Denise Sante. Following the bankruptcy of hisemployer, an iron foundry that manufactured wool-cardingmachinery, my father tried to find another job, but without success.After depleting their savings and selling our house inPepinster, as well as most of the major household possessions,my parents moved into a succession of progressively smallerand dingier apartments, finally winding up in a single room inSeraing, an industrial suburb of Liege, where my father got abarely remunerative stint as nightwatchman in a warehouse.We endured two years of this as a family. My mother becamechronically ill, probably due to stress as much as to bad foodand lack of heat, and consequently I was taken in by myRemacle cousins in the country. They, too, were feeling thepinch of the economy, however, and palmed me off on otherrelatives, who in turn passed me along after a while. I spentthree years being thus shunted around, until the ChristianBrothers admitted me as a hardship case at their boardingschool in Liege in the winter of 1964. By then my mother hadbeen hospitalized full-time and my father had retreated into avigilant and apparently unbreakable silence. At the school I wasconstantly victimized by the other pupils, most of them off-springof well-to-do families. Finally, at thirteen, I snapped, Iset a fire that consumed the dormitory and took the lives of fiveboys.

I was born in 1954 in Verviers, Belgium, the only child ofLucien and Denise Sante. My father's employer, an ironfoundry that manufactured wool-carding machinery, miraculouslyescaped the effects of the recession of 1958 and the collapseof Verviers's textile industry by a rapid and timely changeto the manufacture of radiators. My father, who had worked hisway up to junior management from the labor ranks, devised astreamlined method of cooling molds that earned him a successionof promotions, ultimately to the top seat. By 1968 we hadsold our row house in Pepinster and moved into a villa in aparklike setting on the heights of the "boulevard" district ofVeviers. I grew up fast, and was quickly bored by the provinciallife around me. I barely maintained passing grades at St.Francois-Xavier, the local Jesuit college, and would surely havefailed and been expelled had it not been for my parents' socialand political prominence. As it was, I was taking clandestineexcursions--longer and longer ones--out into the world: toAmsterdam, to Paris, to London, to Majorca, I took every drugI could get my hands on, and I was possibly a father severaltimes over: I was adept at vanishing when matters came to ahead. My parents' threats to cut off my allowance becamesteadily more credible until, in the spring of 1971, I bribed themanager of the Place Verre branch of the Generale de Banqueand withdrew my entire trust fund in cash--or nearly entire; Ileft a token five hundred francs. I flew to Marrakech, where Ilived for eight months in a hotel frequented by members ofBritish rock groups, until a run-in with one of the Berber chieftainswho controlled the hashish traffic from the Rif caused meto fear for my life. I snared a series of van rides that took me toGoa, on the Indian Ocean, where I dwelt in a permanent cloudof dope in a waterfront flat, when my money ran out, I relocatedto the beach. I contracted scabies and syphilis, but I didn'tcare.

I was born in 1954 in Verviers, Belgium, the only child ofLucien and Denise Sante. Following the bankruptcy of myfather's employer, an iron foundry that manufactured wool-cardingmachinery, my parents decided to emigrate to theUnited States. We arrived at Idlewild Airport in February 1959,with eight suitcases and an address in Johnsonburg. Pennsylvania.The address belonged to a family whose son had died nearHenri-Chapelle in the terrible winter of 1944, and whose gravemy mother had maintained as part of a program in whichyoung Belgian women "adopted" the remains of American servicemen.For a few years my mother had kept up a peculiarcorrespondence with this family; they exchanged cards andphotographs and brief letters neither side understood, lacking acommon language. Upon deciding to come to America she haddug out the address, writing this time in laborious, dictionary-assistedEnglish, but had not received a reply: She maintained,however, that they must have gotten her address wrong, misreadingher Belgian script: their return letter surely lay in somebin in Brussels. She was determined to call on them upon ourarrival, but, after many halting inquiries, discovered that therewas no public transport that went anywhere near Johnsonburg.Pennsylvania. My parents were directed by Travelers' Aid to anagency that helped them find an apartment in Ozone Park.Queens, and after a time my father found work as custodian at adoughnut franchise...