Mistakes Were Made is a heartfelt and revealing memoir from model and actress Fiona Lewis about her journey to self-acceptance as she restores a crumbling French chateau. Alone in the French countryside, Lewis reflects on her glamorous youth across London and Paris in the 60s, Hollywood in the 70s, and the important, sometimes disastrous, choices she made along the way.
One day in her late fifties, Fiona Lewis wakes up and asks herself, Is this it? Ostensibly, her life has been full of adventure and privilege: London and Paris in the 60s, Los Angeles in the 70s. Nevertheless, she feels lost. Realizing she has to find a way to reinvent herself, she impulsively buys a ruined chateau in France.
Alone in the depths of the countryside, she contemplates her childhood, her affairsRoman Polanski, Roger Vadimher adventure with drugs and drink, her years as an actress in some good and some questionable films, and her first Hollywood marriage to the damaged son of a movie star. Inevitably, as the long months of renovation drag on, fighting with a band of impossible workmen, she has to come to terms with her fears: her failure to become a real success, her inability to have children, and the inevitability of aging.
What she cant fix is the fact that her husband has no interest in the French countryside. He resents her obsession with the house, which in his eyes has become the equivalent of a lover. And hes not wrong. She is finally happy, at peace. That is, until she becomes attracted to one of the young workmen.
Lewiss lithe prose and unabashed candor about life, love, and acceptance makes for an illuminating and brave memoir.