An Amer­i­can Jew grow­ing up in Europe with French as my first lan­guage, I was unmoored from any sense of belong­ing. My par­ents left Hol­ly­wood when I was three; my father found suc­cess as a pro­duc­er in Lon­don, I went into mag­a­zines — we were both hyp­no­tized by ideas of beau­ty and suc­cess. Through­out a life of inter­na­tion­al glam­our, I kept look­ing for moral codes by which to live: the Gates of Repen­tance on one hand and French 19th cen­tu­ry rules on the oth­er. I edit­ed Paris Vogue but the price of illu­sion came due when I was sent to rehab for a drug prob­lem I did­n’t have. Then again, when Amer­i­can Vogue sent me to inter­view the first lady of Syr­ia before her hus­band began to mur­der his peo­ple, I was made a scape­goat for hav­ing com­plet­ed the assign­ment. The grasshop­per had to become Job before I could find myself.