" I have my French maternal grandmother to thank for my dark hair and blue eyes; she was quite a celebrated ballerina in her twenties; we have the prized programs and grainy press cuttings to prove it. But I’ve always thought of myself as more of a failed Parisian; I have inherited my grandmother’s form but not her grace, and her neat brunette chignon has become a permanently electrocuted mass of curls in my hands. "

― Josie Silver , One Day in December