Summary

The narrator was consistently jealous of Nick during their childhoods, even though the narrator never met Nick until they were in their twenties. The narrator’s father met Nick when visiting the Price family in England. Nick was confident and self-assured, even as a child. He aspired to be successful and to travel the world, as Nick’s grandfather had done. The narrator met Nick 17 years later, during the narrator’s grant-funded research trip to London. Nick had become a chartered accountant and had worked in Kuwait for a limited period of time. Even though the narrator had never visited England before, he was very familiar with areas of London, as he had studied them in atlases. He was especially interested in the history of 1940s London, as he believed that England’s current national identity had become shaped by the traumas of...