Eastern Exchange

In this absorbing autobiography, the novelist John Haylock recalls a period when living in exotic Oriental locations seemed the only way for a gentleman to escape the stultifying constraints of English society. Of course, exile had its compensations, and as Haylock moved from Baghdad to Tokyo, Thailand to Morocco, he encountered memorable characters like Agatha Christie, Duncan Grant, Francis King and Robin Maugham; witnessed the stormy preludes to the upheavals in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Cyprus; and fell in love with more than one pair of dark-brown eyes.