RaveThe Chicago Review of BooksAs Calhoun tracks down the people Schjeldahl interviewed fifty years earlier, the names, dates, and places run together. She immerses us in a parallel timeline of her interviews in 2020 interspersed with her father’s from the 1970s, excerpted in italics. It’s fascinating to hear all these voices directly but sometimes confusing to move back and forth between people and time periods, out of chronology. Who are these people, and what year are we in? Calhoun is an engaging guide and I was willing to wait and see where she led, but it was sometimes hard to follow ... In retrospect, the beginning of the memoir is hard to follow because Calhoun was withholding information she didn’t want to tell us yet ... Once it’s clear that Calhoun is not writing a biography, O’Hara can drop away as the presumed focus of the book—and it becomes the more interesting story of her relationship with her father. The book thus becomes a contribution to a hybrid genre of memoir ... Calhoun is a savvy enough writer to make good use of the situation she finds herself in ... Schjeldahl’s accomplishments were built at least in part on his single-minded attention to them, whereas the women in his life had to divide their creative energies. Calhoun’s book is a way to call him out on his lack of interest and attention without disengaging altogether. That’s difficult and brave to watch ... no one else could have written this brave, intimate memoir in which she 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.
