I really appreciate this author - I’ve given away more copies of her previous book then I can count. Because I respect her so much, I requested a copy of this book which I just couldn’t get to due to other professional priorities. Cannot wait to see what she writes next - and I intend to read and purchase this book now that it’s available

A compelling family and literary memoir by Ada Calhoun about her relationship with her wayward father art critic Peter Schjeldahl and his relationship with acclaimed poet frank O’Hara. Entertaining, engaging, full of gossip and anecdote and a vivid portrait of New York’s art and literary scene, there’s much to enjoy here, and much to learn about a wide cast of notable characters. A great read.

Regular readers know I adore sagas of complicated families. This new nonfiction work from Why We Can't Sleep author Ada Calhoun delivers all that and more. Thanks to the book's pre-release publicity, I discovered Calhoun is the daughter of art critic Peter Schjeldahl, who I've been quoting for YEARS (especially in MMD Book Club) about his approach to works that aren't "immediately hospitable." Calhoun's new genre-bending book is a memoir-ish look at their complex relationship—and also a profile-of-sorts about poet Frank O'Hara. I couldn't resist, devoured it in 36 hours, and put it straight on my Best of the Year list. By the time I closed the last page I'd googled a hundred things about NYC history and requested ten books from my local library. Fascinating, devastating, vexing, illuminating. Heads up for a handful of content warnings that aren't obvious from the publisher's description or reviews.

Ada Calhoun is such a gifted writer. In Also a Poet, Calhoun writes about the relationship she has with her art critic father and their mutual obsession with the poet Frank O’Hara. I enjoyed the artist interviews in the first half of the book, but the last half really came alive by focusing on Ada and her father. It’s a beautifully written family memoir.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for this ARC.

“Also A Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, And Me” (2022) is a lively and vivid biographical portrayal of the late celebrated poet Frank O’Hara, his artistic and creative works remain interwoven in the current American contemporary art forms and literary expression and culture. Ada Calhoun is a notable NYT bestselling author and ghost writer of numerous non-fiction books. In this original book, Calhoun’s desire to produce an O’Hara authorized biography was evident, as she worked to complete this book with her father, the notable art critic for the New Yorker Peter Schjeldahl (1942-).

After Calhoun discovered the forgotten O’Hara tapes, found in the musty basement storage unit of the family home at Saint Marks located in lower Manhattan East Village (2018), Calhoun learned that in the 1970’s her father had been contracted by Harper/Roe to write the first significant O’Hara biography. After his interview with O’Hara’s youngest sister Maureen Granville Smith (the executor of O’Hara’s literary estate) and waiting for promised written materials that were never mailed, his book contract was revoked and cancelled. According to an O’Hara scholar, the interview with Maureen (understandably) had not gone well. Despite the passage of over 40 years, Calhoun was firmly convinced that she could gain Maureen’s approval and consent to continue and complete an O’ Hara biography. There was a noticeable suspense throughout the narrative as readers awaited Maureen’s reply. Calhoun also digitized the brittle tapes to preserve the historical value.

Frank O’Hara (1926-66): was a famous openly gay writer/artist of the 1950's-60’s vibrant NYC literary community that centered around abstract expressionism and the New School Poetry scene. After serving in the Navy during WWII, using the GI Bill, O’Hara studied at Harvard University and graduated in 1950. O’Hara was the associate curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), when he was killed in a freak accident involving a water taxi on Fire Island. To Calhoun’s dismay, her father recalled only vague impressions of O’Hara after meeting him a few times. On the tapes, (mainly recorded in 1977) O’Hara was fondly remembered by numerous celebrity friends, lovers, and those lesser known.

Schjeldahl introduced Calhoun to O’Hara’s poetry “Lunch Poems” (1964) when she was a child. Considering her parents artistic “bohemian” lifestyle, it was challenging for her to attain any level of notice or validation from her indifferent, pre-occupied, self-absorbed father. As a teen, Calhoun was left at Saint Marks’s for long stretches of time while her parents vacationed in the Catskills, and quickly learned to independently fend for herself. Another time, while having lunch with her father and one of his more lecherous friends, she would cross her arms across her chest to block him from commenting and staring openly at her breasts. Several parts of the book followed a unique one-of-a-kind father-daughter narrative and relationship.
To his credit, Schjeldahl agreed fully with Calhoun’s account and enjoyed “Also A Poet” -- hopefully it will be the success Calhoun has earned, her superb skills as a writer are evident on each and every page. Calhoun’s book “Saint Mark’s Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street” (2016) is also recommended. **With thanks to Grove Press New York via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

Best selling author Ada Calhoun, while rummaging for remnants of her childhood in her parent’s apartment at St. Mark’s Place, in Manhattan’s East Side Village, accidentally stumbles upon a treasure trove in the form of audio cassettes representing her father’s interviews with eclectic associates of the eccentric poet, Frank O’ Hara. Calhoun’s father, Peter Schjeldahl, an acclaimed art critic once intended to write a biography of one of America’s most original poets. However, his ambitious project got the boot due to his own insouciance as well as a key person’s intransigence. Maureen O’ Hara, the sister of the departed Frank and the legitimate owner of his estate, denied permission to a seemingly antagonistic Schjeldahl to go ahead with his project, when a face to face interview went bust. Schjeldahl in his talk with Maureen, not only deemed Frank O’ Hara to be inferior to his contemporary, John Ashbery, but also provided a few tactless comments about O’ Hara trying to cover his sexual proclivities (O’ Hara was a homosexual).

Forty five years later, Ada Calhoun decides to take up the doomed project to its rightful conclusion. In the process, Ada not just finds out some marvelous stuff about O’ Hara, but she also ‘re-discovers’ her father and journeys deep within herself. Witty, wistful and warm, Also A Poet is easily one of the best books to have been published thus far in 2022. In a strikingly candid manner, Ada recounts and reveals the uptight relationship which she has had with her father on a sustained basis. Neglecting her in her childhood, her father was blissfully unaware of Ada’s friends, and in fact returned to a life of sobriety only after Ada turned six. Writing throughout the day and drinking through the evening, Schjeldahl’s show of affection towards his daughter represented spontaneous and quick outbursts of affection such as giving her a copy of O’Hara’s famous “Lunch Poems,” when Ada Calhoun was nine.

Ada’s father continues to taunt her and drive her to points of exasperation even in his seventh decade of living. After being diagnosed with fourth stage lung cancer, Peter Schjeldahl threatens to make over his estate to his young friend, Spencer, instead of appointing either Ada or her mother as trustees. Upon confronted in no uncertain terms he defensively mumbles “it was just an idea”. Once, when tidying up the messy apartment inhabited by her father, Ada finds a copy of David Carr’s “The Night of The Gun” carelessly tossed into the trash can. This was Ada’s Christmas gift to her father.

Yet despite Peter Schjeldahl’s shenanigans and cantankerous attitude, Ada Calhoun strives as hard as she can to emulate her father and bring a closure to his one gargantuan project lying in tatters. In this endeavour, a common love of Frank O’ Hara unites them both. An acclaimed author who has made the New York Times bestseller list, Ada is confident of obtaining Maureen’s approval for commencing O’ Hara’s biography from where her father left it. “I just thought, I’m so much nicer than my dad, I’m so much more fun, everything he did wrong, I will do right.”

However, a still remorseless Maureen rains down on Ada’s parade by refusing permission to go ahead with Frank’s biography. As if this was not a body blow enough, Ada’s parents apartment at St Mark’s Place burns down in a raging fire. All of Peter’s art collection, but for a piece bearing the name of de Kooning go up in flames. Maureen’s terse refusal to allow Ada the necessary approvals to put the Frank O’ Hara project back on track, virtually kills all prospects of Ada coming up with a biography of the poet. However, as Ada continues to listen to the cassettes containing the interviews, she realises that she has gained more than she has lost.

Myriad personalities, whose voices waft in and out of the digitized tapes bear testimony to the fickleness and finesse that is human nature. It also brings into focus the vulnerabilities of Ada’s own father as an interviewer and his inadequacies as a biographer. This, in spite of his stellar and proved reputation as a writer par excellence. The tapes also highlight the untold sacrifices made by Ada’s mother and actor, Brooke Alderson. Even when earning more than her husband, she doubled up as a professional artist, cook, maid, dutiful mother and an uncompromising housewife. In the words of Ada herself, “she provided fifty years of residency in writing” to her father. More than everything else, the tapes provide a startling and stunning perspective of Ada’s own worth, value and place in the life a man who was characterised by a bewildering degree of complexity.

Also A Poet – a magnificent tribute to human frailty.

(ALSO A POET: FRANK O’HARA, MY FATHER, AND ME by Ada Calhoun is published by Grove Press and will be available for sale beginning 14th June 2022).

Thank You Net Galley for the Advance Reviewer Copy.

Calhoun has written an original and extremely important memoir, which also thoroughly captures the legendary poet Frank O’Hara’s tenuous and freewheeling years in New York City. O’Hara was a monumental presence in the life of this author’s father, making the memoir even more compelling to read than a standard linear autobiography. The sights, scenes, and drama of New York in the 1950s and 1960s is covered with deep intelligence.

I really enjoyed this book
A blend of weaving her story with that of Frank O Hara and her father is a genius and what i particularly loved about this book and telling how the book was born. I loved it and for anyone looking into the live of Frank O Hara and the poet's world. This book is for you.

This was a great read! Not quite a comprehensive biography of the poet Frank O'Hara, I still learned a lot about him and the New York City poets and artists he hung out with. Not quite a memoir, I still found the end - the most densely personal part - to be quite revealing and insightful.

Emotional moving so beautifully written.A book of a father daughter relationship that many readers will relate to.A book that got more interesting as it went toward the middle for me.Will be recommending.#netgalley #alsoapoet

If I could leave a single-word review for this read, it would be stunning. I loved the way it was written, and it was a greatly comforting read for me during my winter break from school. I also LOVE the cover and the type font.

Ada Calhoun's memoir, Also a Poet, broke my reverie and transported me back to the time when my father is still alive. Complicated relationships with parents often reflect our desire to have their love, affection, and attention that make us look for a common ground where we can stand eye to eye with them.

At the beginning, it is really hard for me to get into the book. It's can be a long drag but worth the wait and read because the book gets better towards the middle until the end.

It is a good read but for specific audience/readers because it can be heavy for some readers specially to the younger ones. Nonetheless, it is a book worthy of a meaningful discussion for a book club or buddy read.

Many thanks to Grove Atlantic for the complementary copy.

Fascinating examination of not just 1950s and 19060s nyc art and writing scene but a close and poignant look at a father-daughter relationship and an investigation of the bonds of family.