Host of Memories is a collection of stories from the life of Peter Rupert Lighte, sinologist and founding chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank China. The book begins during Peter's childhood and meanders through his adult years. In luscious descriptions, he portrays the drama and security of his Jewish New York upbringing melting into his struggle, as a quizzical young man, to hone his ideas on life while traversing the continents, discovering his sexuality, and ultimately experiencing the belonging he was seeking.
Artfully navigating between Europe and Asia and finally making his way back to Princeton, where he had previously studied, the author traipses through diverse social and cultural climates, finding niches into which he fits and reveling in terrain where he is not so sure.
Over the course of the book, the author's effort to find his true identity blooms into a celebration of his life, which takes on new meaning with the adoption of his Chinese daughters.