Film historian Patrick McGilligan has turned from chronicling the lives of Hollywood figures to writing about his own upbringing in Madison, publishing The Good Life: Growing Up in a Lost World, a memoir of childhood and adolescence in the city during the 1950s and ’60s. McGilligan, whose biographies have covered Orson Welles, Mel Brooks and Alfred Hitchcock, describes a childhood shaped by Catholic schools, a two-parent household and one black-and-white television watched under parental supervision. He was 9 when he first went to a movie theater, seeing the biblical epic Ben-Hur, which had received approval from the Catholic Legion of Decency. Hollywood briefly crossed into family life when a segment of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club was filmed near Madison. After Annette Funicello’s mother stopped at the family home for directions, McGilligan recalled, the young star and other cast members joined the family for a backyard barbecue and water skiing. His own film obsession came later, while he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Older students and graduate students introduced him to a more sophisticated appreciation of film and world cinema. He went on to help run a campus film society, interview visiting film figures and write about movies. McGilligan has said that the group also helped move his politics to the left. The memoir took shape over many years, alongside his work on film books. McGilligan began by recording interviews with his parents, saying he considered preserving their memories a family responsibility as well as a natural extension of his professional work in oral history. He also contacted friends from his old neighborhood, which had since been demolished through urban renewal, and checked dates against newspaper archives. McGilligan uses the phrase “lost world” to describe a childhood that felt safe but constrained, while also holding possibilities that became clearer as he grew older. The book’s blend of family recollection and city history offers a personal account of a Madison neighborhood and the social world that shaped a future film historian.