Who is Andre J de Saint Phalle?
I’m a 73-year-old memoirist living in Vermont
Who is Andre J de Saint Phalle?
I’m a 73-year-old memoirist living in Vermont, and if you’ve found your way here through a search engine, you’re probably wondering which Andre de Saint Phalle I am. Let me clear that up.
I’m not my grandfather, André Marie Fal Pierre de Saint Phalle (1906-1967), the French banker who came to New York in 1925 with six aristocratic brothers and built Saint-Phalle & Co. into a $33 million Wall Street firm before the 1929 crash.
I’m not one of the medieval André de Saint Phalles stretching back to 1240, when André I served as a knight of the Order of Saint-John of Jerusalem, living by the family motto: “My cross binds me to God, my sword to the King.”
I’m the nephew of Niki de Saint Phalle, the famous French-American artist known for her “Nanas” sculptures and the Tarot Garden in Tuscany. But I didn’t grow up in her artistic world. I grew up in the shadow of the family’s expectations, dysfunction, and unspoken secrets.
What I Do
I write memoir. Specifically, I write about the collision of two vastly different family traditions that shaped my life: the French aristocratic Saint Phalle lineage with its proximity to power and its destructive perfectionism, and the Irish immigrant Furlong line built on survival, resilience, and pragmatism.
My first book chronicles growing up at Ledge Acres, our 1865 farmhouse in Armonk, New York, during the 1960s—a household that tried to recreate Kennedy-style Camelot in Westchester while darkness threaded through the golden years. My father worked alongside Charles F. Spalding, JFK’s Harvard roommate and close friend. We were one degree of separation from the presidency itself, connected to figures like Dr. Max Jacobson (”Dr. Feelgood”) who treated New York’s elite with amphetamine-laced “vitamin shots.”
I write about the suicides in our family. The alleged sexual abuse. The psychiatric hospitalizations. The rigid control and religious absolutism. The partnership collapse after Kennedy’s assassination. The divorce that scattered our family and left my mother facing real hardship.
But I also write about love—even for those who harmed me. About moments of sublime connection with nature while skiing or windsurfing. About unlikely encounters: teaching Vanessa Redgrave to windsurf, meeting Jerry Garcia, shaking hands with B.B. King. About standing at 21 on the side of an interstate with my backpack and guitar, choosing the open road over a legacy that had destroyed as much as it created.
Why I Write
There’s a saying about dying three times: first physically, then the last time someone speaks your name, and finally when someone thinks of you for the last time. Memoir writing is my refusal of that third death.
At 73, I’m working on book two—the Antigua years with my soulmate Thea, the peak years of adventure and fun.
Book three will chronicle over 25 years with my wife Veronica, a deeper, longer, more fraught and ultimately more rewarding experience.
I write because I’ve loved my life deeply, even its damaged parts. I write to preserve the texture of being alive and connected. I write to say to the people and moments that shaped me: “You existed. I was there. It mattered.”
The Other Things I’ve Done
Before memoir, I was a photographer—wedding and portrait work with Veronica in Vermont. Before that, an itinerant wanderer who couldn’t find a place to land, shuffling the deck, leaving town in the cover of night. I’ve been a home-recording artist. A surfer waiting for the best wave of the set.
I took both my inheritances—the Saint Phalle proximity to power and culture, the Furlong bedrock of survival—and used them to stay open. To keep moving, keep connecting, keep experiencing.
Now I’m doing the opposite of leaving. I’m going back. Not to find the places (Ledge Acres is sold, the river bends have changed), but to find the moments. To capture not just what happened, but the feeling of those moments before they dissolve completely.
How to Find My Work
You’re already here at my Substack where I publish memoir essays, reflections on the writing process, and stories from a life lived between two worlds. Everything here is free—subscriptions are purely optional support for the work at $5/month or $50/year.
I’m also on X/Twitter at @andrejdsp, where I share thoughts on memoir writing and connect with other writers.
So Who Am I?
I’m Andre J de Saint Phalle—the one who got out, looked back, and decided to write it all down. The one who carries both the nobility and the bedrock, the damage and the love. The one who refuses to let the snowflakes melt without witness.
I’m a memoirist at 73, doing the most important work of my life: keeping people and moments alive by remembering them, by writing them down, by saying their names one more time.
That’s who I am.