This is the story of a girl born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1934. She accumulated seven parents and lived in five countries which included Great Britain during the Blitz.. Subsequently, her grandfather, a railroad tycoon, bought a banana cargo boat to enable Marive, her mother, and Nurse to escape war-torn Europe. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, they immigrated through Halifax to New York City. There, Marive went to three schools before attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Although she married an American and has three children, she has never escaped her sense of dislocation.
Marive taught creative writing at several schools, including Brown University, and has previously published two books of poetry. She currently lives in Massachusetts.