Cat Buchanan

BELSIZE Park author Cat Buchanan was just three days old when her super-rich adoptive parents brought her home from hospital by private plane.

But before long the couple divorced and their young daughter was torn between California and New York in a bitter custody battle.

Now Hollywood-born Cat, who has lived in Belsize Park for more than 30 years and is a member of BelSoc, the area’s residents’ association, has written a pacey memoir.

Girl in Flight charts her tumultuous journey through childhood and early adolescence in Manhattan and Los Angeles during the 1960s and early 1970s.

She writes about adoption, alcoholism, acrimonious divorce, and evokes the bloated lifestyle of the rich as she spotlights her young self ping-ponging between the homes of her warring parents – Meyera on America’s west coast and George on the east coast.

It’s a long way from Hollywood to Hampstead, where Cat enjoys walking on the Heath and “the sense of community, culture and history” in the area she now calls home. But she hopes her book will resonate across borders.

“I wrote straight from the heart in the hope that others facing similar issues might draw strength and encouragement from the story,” she told Review. “Rather than write a misery memoir, this is a real-life example of how resilience can enable anyone, at any time, in any place to not just survive, but thrive when dealing with deplorable circumstances.”

The memoir recounts how her parents, who “shared an insatiable appetite for luxury” had fancy houses, fast cars, powerboats, his and hers private planes – everything but a baby. Their adoption bid was oiled by money.

When their relationship skids downhill George demands young Cat listens on an extension line to his “terrorist” belligerent, drunken phone calls to Meyera, who often drinks herself to oblivion.

Aged five, Cat flies on her own from Los Angeles to New York – the first-class ticket “wasted” on her – because George has been granted custody on New Year’s Eve.

Distraught when her father’s second marriage – which produces a child, Cynthia – collapses, Cat is barred from mentioning her stepmother and half sister.

There are lighter moments. Barrelling along, the memoir presents a dizzying array of characters, plus events and actions that are jaw dropping – or even jaw-locking.

At one social do George laces burgers with rubber bands that aren’t visible until the first bite, when diners will struggle to disengage their mouths.

He spends more than $2,000 on fireworks for a Fourth of July celebration. When he takes Cat to buy sporting goods in Manhattan, “the cash register rang in a symphony of spending”.

For a “camping” trip he buys a turbocharged barbecue, collapsible mahogany table, 12 folding chairs, limited edition antler cutlery, Spode bone china.

Their destination turns out to be a chateau, equipped with silk tapestries. Fly-fishing gear will be used, but the rest of the purchases were “window dressing” to throw Cat off-track. It’s George’s little ruse.

“We won’t be roughing it,” he smiles.

Roughing it would have those in the memoir’s flashier social circles clutching their Cartier watches in horror – although one woman would struggle to clutch anything, wearing a diamond ring “so ostentatious, she claimed it was difficult to lift her hand unaided”.

On the other hand, young Cat scavenges for food most weekends when her mother is passed out drunk.

In the hope, thankfully fulfilled, of breakfast, the child knocks on tenants’ doors in the apartment building Meme, her grandmother, and Meyera bought in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

It’s Meme – who Cat said was “a paragon of support, wisdom and unconditional love” – who provides her with information about her birth mother.

The latter died from a heroin overdose before the author “had an opportunity to express my gratitude for being released to be raised in better circumstances”.

Better, but clearly challenging – though Cat emerges a survivor, and said she loved her “mercurial and avaricious” adoptive parents.

In the memoir she relates how, aged 14 and sick of conflict and sweeping changes, she refuses George’s demand that she spend Christmas in New York. As a result he vows never to speak to her again – and he doesn’t.

The last she sees of him is at his funeral, when she drops a note expressing sadness at the unrepaired rift between them into his open casket.

Like a good Hollywood yarn, the memoir ends happily, with Cat meeting a long-lost relative.

She said all names in the book have been changed, with the exception of immediate family who have either died, or consented to being named.

Today she is in contact with her sister Cynthia, and her cousin, Sandy, to whom the book is dedicated. She has also made contact with her birth mother’s family.

A former student of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Cat is a media lawyer and has also worked as a TV producer, creating rock ‘n’ roll documentaries.

She said she thoroughly enjoys events and guided historic walks organised by BelSoc, and “in Camden the wonderful vibe generated by live music venue Spiritual, and treasure trove available at Walden Books, are second to none.”

Sadly, though, California wildfires have reduced where she grew up to “smoke and ash”.

She said many places mentioned in the memoir “have been damaged or destroyed – but never forgotten”.

• Girl in Flight. By Cat Buchanan, Woodbridge, hardcover £17.99, paperback £10.99