Todd McEwen grew up in Southern California. As the son of relatively normal people, he had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, try as he might. This is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4.30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who made his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family’s dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema. A guy who based his philosophy of life on Captain Nemo, and has watched Chinatown over sixty times. So far.

Todd McEwen was born in Southern California in the 1950s. As a child he was interested in comedy and the undersea realm, and terrified by Bambi. In high school he had his own radio show, interviewing folk singers and puzzle inventors. At university he read Victorian and medieval English literature. He worked in radio, theatre and the rare books trade before arriving in Scotland in the 1980s. After a spell at Granta, he has often worked as an editor and teacher. His novels include Fisher’s Hornpipe, McX: A Romance of the Dour, Who Sleeps with Katz and The Five Simple Machines.

'A quirky, chewy gallimaufry containing a small jewel, a little masterpiece of a chapter, 'Cary Grant’s Suit,' which lends the book not only its title but also its fundamental claim to your attention . . . If I were compiling a new Oxford Book of Essays, I’d include 'Cary Grant’s Suit' alongside Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and Joan Didion. It’s digressive, surprising, delightful.' Ian Sansom, Telegraph