A lyrical hymn to the irrecoverable past, Robin Fedden’s memoir Chantemesle takes its title from the house in which he grew up, itself named after a tiny hamlet in the Île de France. Over the years, Chantemesle has been haunted by a succession of artists. It rises above a silver bend in the Seine, its back pressed against vast, grotesque outcrops of chalk scars wrapped in scrub, created by eruptions of the last Ice Age.