If everyone’s a critic, and all the world is a stage, we all must play the roles of audience and performer, opinionator and creator. Few people have lived as deeply embedded in this dichotomy as Priscilla Gilman, the daughter of drama critic Richard Gilman and a performer and critic herself.

Priscilla Gilman grew up in New York City, the older daughter of Richard Gilman and Lynn Nesbit, a literary power couple. Richard worked as a drama critic and Yale School of Drama professor, Lynn as an agent to high-profile authors like Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, and Robert Caro.

Richard Gilman possessed a flair for the dramatic and romantic, as well as a sharp critical voice that cut like a razor blade through texts and performances he found lacking. He loved in his children the qualities he prized in himself—imagination, intellect, and passion. Gilman, who found her mother cold and removed, soaked up her father’s love, and it sustained her completely.

The book begins, almost ominously, with Gilman making the case for the absolute magic of her father as a parent. She writes with lavish praise of his playfulness, soothing skills, and total brilliance. “Children and animals alike adored my father.” He was the cat’s pajamas and the bee’s knees.

The young family’s apartment served as a gathering spot for a who’s who of writers, artists, and intellectuals of the 1970s. “Surrounded by creative writers, did my father not feel inadequate? No, because he was the judge and they the judged, he the one they all turned to for advice, wisdom, validation. My father’s approval meant everything to those who wanted to please him.”

As a young child, Gilman was blissfully immune from her father’s critical eye. To him, she was a perfectly formed creation, her every idea worthy of respect and exploration. How intoxicating it must have been for her to possess the adoration of one so critical of others.

And yet as Gilman grew up, she did begin to work for her father’s love. In the classic codependent way, she sensed and managed her father’s moods and temper to a degree far more sophisticated than her years. When her parents divorced, her role as comforter and cheerleader consumed her identity as a daughter.

To blame for the divorce was her father’s unusual sexual appetites. He cheated on her mother and apparently preferred whips and chains in the bedroom. When Gilman discovered an explicit letter her father wrote, her mother told her about his indiscretions, despite her daughter’s tender preteen age.

Gilman’s mother disclosed more damaging revelations about Richard, thinking (wrongly) that her daughter was old enough to handle them. Though Gilman claims she empathized “keenly” with her mother in the divorce, evidence of a serious grudge remains. Her treatment of her mother on these pages is cold. Of her younger sister, Gilman writes: “Other than my father, there was no one I loved more.”

In contrast, Gilman forgave her father for every misstep. She made his happiness her mission, even writing a list of things not to do in front of her dad lest she trigger a dark mood. Richard, who, like his ex-wife, seemed to be following a list of the worst things to do during a divorce, told his daughters he would kill himself if not for them.

That was all Gilman needed to hear. She vowed to provide “steadfast affection and innocent faith in him” no matter what. It meant decades of Gilman putting on a performance her father would probably have deemed flawless, if he had been in on the act. She was loving, upbeat, strong, and cheerful for him. The great romance between father and daughter, like husband and wife before them, became deeply dysfunctional.

Throughout the book, Gilman delightfully weaves the television shows, plays, and movies of her childhood into the story. As a girl, she was Charlie to her father’s Willy Wonka. She saw her father in the Tony character from West Side Story. She understood divorce through Kramer vs. Kramer.

Gilman also addresses the contradictions and shortcomings of dramatic criticism, suggesting that people should be free to love what they love, in all senses, not just the theatrical. She illustrates her point through her father, who suffered from public disapproval over his sexual preferences (which he disclosed in his memoir, Faith, Sex, Mystery).

She tells of several instances when her father, at an emotional low point, seemed to let himself be captivated by performances that he ordinarily would have panned. Soon after the divorce, Gilman noticed her father crying during the gazebo scene in Sound of Music, a movie he disdained. (His friend and fellow Yale professor Stanley Kauffman referred to it as “The Sound of Mucus.”)

While the questions raised about the nature and value of criticism are worthwhile, the heart of this memoir is the unusually powerful, fraught, and enduring father-daughter relationship. Gilman creates an emotional map of the catastrophic disruption of divorce and the devotion of a child for her parent despite his failings.

The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir – Pricilla Gilman – 2023 –
The life of distinguished theater-literary critic professor Richard Gilman (1923-2006) is celebrated and chronicled in this wonderful debut memoir. In the 1970’s, childhood at 333 Central Park West was “magical” for Pricilla and her sister Claire. Her father worked from his home office, cared for his daughters, and championed that his wife, the literary agent Lynn Nesbit, worked outside the home, which was uncommon at the time. The girls adored their father, he played creative exciting games, frequently read aloud to them, with regular visits to the public library, and family vacations abroad. His need for quiet and solitude was always understood. Although he had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, his love for art, drama and literature replaced his spiritual connection to organized religion.

At her parent’s cocktail parties and cook-outs, the girls passed out snack trays to influential authors: from Ann Beattie, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Hardwick to Jerry Kosinski, Lore Segal and Michael Crichton. Her father had received an award for his criticism (1970-71) and many authors and artists hoped to gain his approval and endorsement for their work. He disdained people who claimed to be poets and artists without any merit or talent, and believed all criticism was for the public good. In print, he could be ruthless, harsh and uncompromising. He was unable to refrain from commenting or be polite. Many people were devastated by his negative reviews. Harold Brodkey, his closest friend, was told that, no, he wasn’t an American Proust. John Updike retaliated against her father in print. Edmund White wrote to Pricilla that her father was one of the first tolerant heterosexuals to befriend him.
When Nesbit filed for divorce, Gilman would come to understand adult subject matters beyond her years. Her father was essentially broke, and depended on the goodwill of his friends for living arrangements until he could secure a position teaching at Yale and afford an apartment. Years later, when her father’s colleagues were writing their memoirs, he had already published “Faith, Sex, Mystery: A Memoir” (1986)—Gilman felt an urgent need to update his life story and legacy, fearing it might be forgotten and lost to history. To her credit, she maintained good relationships with her half-brother Nicholas and they both traveled to Japan as often as possible, to visit their father and step-mother Yasuko Shiojuri Oku during their father’s end of life care from lung cancer. During one visit, she checked her father’s private papers and learned of additional unpleasant truths, yet, her unconditional love for him never changed.

Readers can't help but be encouraged by Gilman’s role in her family as a respectful non-judgmental peacemaker, which served her incredibly well after her own marriage to a fellow PhD graduate ended in divorce. Gilman initially followed a similar path as her father, and became a professor teaching literature at Vassar-- though was never happy or satisfied with a career in academia. Today, she works for the literary agency that was co-founded by her mother. In addition, she enjoys co-parenting her two sons with her former husband, nor is it surprising that they all live in the same building. ** With thanks to W.W. Norton & Company via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

Gilman pens an honest testament to the huge influence her father had on her life.
I had never heard of Richard Gilman, but I like to read biographies. Children usually gravitate toward one parent over another and for the author it was definitely her father. I enjoyed reading about her adolescence because so many of the cultural things she experience, tv and music, I did as well.
Gilman endured many roller coaster rides with her father, but in the end, his lasting legacy pours out in her book.

If you love memoir, this is an especially readable one. A daughter who grew up among a rarefied literary crowd shares intimate details about her tricky relationship with her well-regarded theater critic father and well-established and further on the rise literary agent mother in 1970s Manhattan. Priscilla's world came crashing down when her mother decided that her marriage wasn't working and chose divorce as the only solution. At a young age, Priscilla felt responsible for her father's happiness and instead of doing things that girls her age were doing, she was busy worrying about him, protecting him, and attempting to come to terms with the person he was and accepting the father he was capable of being. At a young age, Priscilla is confronted with private concerns between her parents that she is not ready to understand let alone manage. What shines through is a daughter's love. If you enjoyed Jamie Bernstein's FAMOUS FATHER GIRL, the stories have a lot of similarities.

Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A moving, insightful, and candid book. As a memoir it’s highly specific and yet broad in its themes. The particular texture of this father daughter relationship is beautifully rendered, the literary references (appropriate for a book about a literary critic) expand its scope, and the appreciation that the author has for an imperfect father who still managed to be a stellar parent is both touching and illuminating.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book for the purpose of this review. I really enjoyed Gilman's story about all the famous literary people she grew up with and how they shaped her life. I thought she did a great job detailing her relationship with her father. At some points I started to feel disconnected though. I'm giving it a three star review. Memoirs are my favorite genre and I did like that this one was a father-daughter relationship focus.

Strong book by an interesting writer I admire. The complexities of a father/daughter relationship is intricately explored here. I also enjoyed the vivid sense of detail and setting as it was evoked in this book.

"The Critic's Daughter" is well-crafted and at times, heart-wrenching. The themes of a demanding and brilliant parent, the wounds of divorce, and the secrets families keep are universal, but the specifics of the writing make this story reverberate and shine. Highly recommended! Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.