'For years I'd been struggling with an identity crisis,' says the slight, immaculately dressed Boerma as he plunges a fork into a slice of carrot cake topped with a blob of cream and a pink bougainvillaea petal. 'My mother was English, my father Dutch; I was gay, while the Nelspruit community I grew up in was macho; I had fabulous visions of Parisian glamour, but I lived in Hicksville; and I had privilege, while my black friends were oppressed.' When John-Anthony Boerma, in exile in Holland, put down Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, his checkerboard life fell into place – Holly Golightly, the central character, was him. This was the fi rst of several identities that the artist assumed. Pat Hopkins tells the story of this eccentric man in a personal story that at times becomes intertwined with his own story. The result is a very personal and intriguing memoir of a writer describing an artist who leads him on a dance of discovery.
