One of the twentieth century's most enigmatic writers, Paul Frederick Bowles was born December 30, 1910, in New York, New York, the only child of dentist Claude Dietz Bowles and poet Rena (Winnewisser) Bowles. Bowles learned to read early and showed a passion for music as a child, studying piano and music theory before composing an opera when he was just nine years old. Apart from his reading and music, however, Bowles described his childhood as a lonely time spent in the company of eccentric adults. His father, a disciplinarian, took his parenting strategy from people like nutritionist Horace Fletcher, who claimed that chewing food until it lost its flavor would cure one of everything from acne to indigestion. Bowles's father forced the boy to chew each mouthful at least forty times before swallowing. Inappropriate swallowing resulted in a slap across the face. When she was not teaching...