Description
A staggering memoir from New York Times-bestselling author Ada Calhoun tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet
When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O'Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started forty years earlier.
As a lifelong O'Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O'Hara's past, but also her father's, and her own.
The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us; when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it.
In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.
Product Details
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Publish Date | June 14, 2022 |
| Pages | 272 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780802159786 |
| Dimensions | 9.1 X 6.0 X 1.3 inches | 0.9 pounds |
About the Author
Ada Calhoun is the New York Times bestselling author of St. Marks Is Dead, Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, and Why We Can't Sleep. She has written for the New York Times, the New Republic, and the Washington Post.
Reviews
Praise for Also a Poet
A Best Book of the Year for the New York Times, Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, Audible, Hudson News, Esquire, Chicago Public Library, Oprah Daily, NPR's Fresh Air, Apple Books, Literary Hub, Publishers Lunch, Bookpage, PBS Newshour and Paris Review
Longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
A July 2022 IndieNext Pick
"A grand slam of a new memoir...Also a Poet is packaged as a love triangle: father, daughter and O'Hara. It's actually a tetrahedron from which all kinds of creative characters pop forth. It's a big valentine to New York City past and present, and a contribution to literary scholarship, molten with soul." - New York Times Book Review
"Brave, blistering... Fierce, dissonant, yet compelling." -- Washington Post
"A scintillating work of personal quest and cultural history....[Calhoun] writes with bracing vulnerability and a dreamy sweetness about her adolescence, light of touch but long on skill... [Also a Poet] shares a propulsive energy with such vivid oral histories as Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil's trippy "Please Kill Me" and Jean Stein's stylish "Edie." As Calhoun's earlier books attest, she's a hell of an observer, writing with flair and putting herself on a tightwire, a high-risk gamble that mostly results in high rewards." -- Boston Globe
"Is Also a Poet a biography of Frank O'Hara? Of writer Ada Calhoun's father, art critic Peter Schjeldahl? Or, as its title page insists, is it Calhoun's memoir? Whatever it is, it's dazzling." -- Star Tribune
"Trenchant and controlled, a work of quiet, or sly, virtuosity." -- Bookforum
"No one else could have written this brave, intimate memoir in which [Calhoun] insists on her own worthiness to speak and be heard. Also a Poet will appeal to readers who enjoy what Granville-Smith dismisses as "gossip," enjoy hybrid forms that bend genres, and admire authors who take you along with them as they figure things out. Calhoun and her book are more than interesting enough in their own right." -- Chicago Review of Books
"Also a Poet is a méeacute;lange of cultural history and a poignant cri de coeur." -- Oprah Daily
"Calhoun's voice is clear and cogent, a winning and personable guide." -- Vogue, Best Books of 2022 So Far
"A memoir that does surreptitious triple duty as a partial, unauthorized O'Hara biography, a meditation on the purpose and function of the genre, and an unanticipated investigation into the powers of literary estates to determine what, when, and how we read." -- Los Angeles Review of Books
"Trenchant and controlled, a work of quiet, or sly, virtuosity." -- Bookforum, Writers on Their Favorite Books of 2022
"A beautiful book in what feels like a brand new genre." -- Literary Hub, 29 Works of Nonfiction You Need to Read This Summer
"In this heartfelt memoir, Calhoun recounts how going in search of O'Hara revealed so much more--namely, the painful complexities of parents, children, art, and ambition." -- Esquire, Best Books of Summer 2022
"A portrait of Schjeldahl that feels much clearer and intimate than any we might have gotten of O'Hara by way of overheard interviews. It&
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