In James Harvey’s memoir, the Ireland-born, London-raised, educator-turned-American public servant looks back on his chaotic upbringing.

Born in Donegal, a tiny town in northwest Ireland, Harvey—later a Capitol Hill analyst and occasional presidential speechwriter—had a decent early childhood: school at St. Edwards in London; going to movies, circuses, and Punch and Judy shows; playing “war” with his friends (among actual WWII bombing sites, no less).

When his father started drinking, however, this caused brawls between his parents that left one or both of them bleeding. Finally, when he was six or seven years old, his mother packed him and his four siblings into a police car after one such fight, which took them to a London orphanage. There was Ted, the eldest, who “fitted the archetype of the first child to a ‘T’”; Rosemary, a rebel; Kathleen, the characteristic middle child; and James’s fraternal twin, Frank, who was small and sickly, and struggled in school.

James and Ted eventually ended up with their grandmother back in Donegal, which, according to James, “was the intensive care unit that breathed new life into both of us.” Later, the family (sans James’ father) reunited in America, when James was a teenager. There, he attended college, earning a PhD and ended up as a staffer for President Jimmy Carter.

James is trained as a historian, and it shows in his attention to detail, which is, unfortunately, sometimes tiresome (e.g., the chapter devoted to generations of the Harvey family stretching back to the 1700s). Yet he possesses what many historians lack: storytelling prowess. That scene of escaping to an orphanage is a page-turner, and there are a dozen more just as gripping. Also fascinating is how James evokes postwar Ireland and England, both in their politics and in tableaus of daily living, such as the spectacle of an Irish Catholic mass.

Readers interested in depictions of life in other countries will enjoy this enthusiastic narrative.