Born in Cordova, Alaska, Remington spent his grammar school years in Colorado, where he excelled in bare-knuckle boxing with Native Americans and lighting matchsticks from afar with his slingshot. He left the United States for boarding school at Le Rosey in Switzerland, where he spent spring terms sailing on Lake Geneva and winters in Gstaad.

Remington matriculated to Brown University, where he studied classics, rowed crew, and hitchhiked to the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village on weekends to play banjo. His college summers were spent sailing, playing cards with smugglers, and spearfishing sharks in the Bimini Islands.

After college, he moved to Europe and took up the life of a vagabond, eventually settling in North Africa. He rented a third-floor apartment on Venice’s Grand Canal and reputedly wore out his welcome at the Schönbiel Hut on the Haute Route. He was spotted sailing in Bastia, gambling in Monaco, and running with the bulls in Pamplona. Eventually, he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with a commune of beatniks to Tangier. After three years of traveling, he made his way back to the United States and was accepted to the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Remington moved to New Orleans after receiving his MFA. He took up residence at the Hotel Monteleone, where he befriended Tennessee Williams over bottles of Château Margaux at the Carousel Bar. His interests centered on bowhunting alligators in the Atchafalaya Swamp and boxing at the New Orleans Athletic Club, where he took his afternoon Sazerac and Montecristo at Vaughan’s Pub. It was during this time in the French Quarter that the seeds of his literary genius were sown.

He's a member of Burning Tree Club, the Bohemian Club, The Brook, the International Order of St. Hubertus, and White's in London.

He wears bespoke suits from Huntsman, owns a '62 Land Rover IIA and a '58 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL, and attended the Grateful Dead's 5/8/77 concert at Cornell.