Daddy, We Hardly Knew You

by Germaine Greer

The most personal book from the renowned author of the landmark feminist treatise  The Female Eunuch

When her father died in 1983, Germaine Greer realized how little she knew about him. What had happened during World War II to make this charming but distant man draw a “curtain of silence” around himself? Why had he never spoken of his family? Why had he never shown her the love she craved? In this deeply moving book, Greer tells of the impassioned search she made for the truth about her father—a search that led her to a new understanding of herself as well.
 
Her quest lasted three years and took her from England to Australia to Tasmania, India, and Malta; through scores of genealogical, civil, and military archives; and into the memories of the men and women who may—or may not—have known Reg Greer.
 
Yet the heart of Greer’s narrative is her own emotional journey, as the startling facts behind the façade her father had constructed force her painfully to examine her own notions of truth and loyalty, family and obligation.

Praise for Daddy, We Hardly Knew You
 
“A big, bold book . . . Ferocious psychic need and volcanic energy drive this combined memoir, detective story and travelogue from first to last.” — The New Yorker
 
“Riveting.” — Time

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Australia, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Germaine Greer is an Australian born writer, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century.

Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her ground-breaking The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her overnight into a household name and bringing her both adulation and criticism. She is also the author of Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), and most recently Shakespeare's Wife (2007).

Reviews

[Stanley Bloom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Germaine Greer: Daddy We Hardly Knew You

This is two or three books rolled into one, with a lot of padding and now and again some interesting passages. It could have been much better.

Greer sets out to discover the father she knew so little of. He served abroad for a time during the war, but otherwise she lived at home with him while she was growing up. She loses her focus, however, goes into long descriptions of the travels that took her to far away places where she was searching for evidence of his past, wanders along other sidetracks and goes into the most ridiculous detail. For instance, having ascertained that he was not born in England or Wales she then lists every town, city and borough alphabetically from Aberystwyth to Woolwich where there was no record of him. A page or so later she catalogues Greer generations in Scotland from about the ninth century on! Is this how she was going to reach the number of words that must have been stipulated in the publisher’s contract – which came with a fat advance?

The writing is otherwise of a very uneven standard, varying from the language of the street to purple prose and the use of words that not one reader in a hundred will understand. How many, I wonder, know what ‘prelapsarian’ or ‘ziggurat’ mean? Then there are all the unexplained Australian colloquialisms, which few without an Australasian background will have a clue about, or in some cases not misunderstand for there are words like ‘verandah’ which mean one thing in Australia and New Zealand and another elsewhere. I would also say she went about her task in a most illogical manner, leaving family, friends and others her knew her father to last and starting by travelling afar and wasting countless hours, weeks, months even, on fruitless missions to research libraries, record offices and other such sources. Perhaps she simply wanted to give herself an excuse to travel.

In the end she uncovers the secrets behind her father’s facade, but the journey could have been so much shorter and more interesting.

[Rowena · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a let-down, but then that is because she was stuck for research material and as she said, had accepted an advance for the book before writing it. You'll enjoy it if you admire her, but nothing of real substance.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Germaine Greer goes on a search for information about her father, who was absent when she was growing up and distant when he returned. Interesting stuff about family history and being Australian.

I liked this a lot - the history and family stuff was great, and she muses a lot about identity and heredity and family history.

[Kaughtlane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful story but the descriptive language of the surroundings became a little too much at times. I was drawn more to the emotional intensity of her exploration and was hoping to hear more about her family and the people she encountered. Less about the flowers, trees, killing of kangaroos (which became so repetitive). But, a beautiful story, none the less.

[Iris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only read it trough because I always end a book.
The story was boring en just a summary of people and facts. Not my cup of tea.

[Eric O. Schultz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daddy, We Hardly Knew You follows Germaine's Greer as she searches for her father, Reginald Greer's, origins. Despite knowing him all her life, with the exception of a two year period during the second Great War, she knows little about him. He seems to have no family outside of the one he made with his wife. His social life consists of friends he made at work. The reason he gives for this is that his family originated in South Africa (with his father being a reporter), by way of England. In Australia, he sells advertising space in the local newspaper, and struts about like a Toff. I was initially intrigued by the book because with the loose connection to advertising there is a slight parallel between Reg Greer and the fictitious character Don Draper in Mad Men. Both men have lowly beginnings, and both invent themselves.

This could have been an interesting story. What sinks the book is that Greer can't find any information about her father. In a novel, you can invent; with non-fiction, this leads to a story mostly made up of dead ends. Greer tracks Reg Greer's origins down eventually: he is the bastard child of a rich farm owner and his house maid (the usual scandal). After his birth, he is given into foster care of a woman surnamed Emma Greeney ( Reg later mutates the surname to Greer). Through most of the book Greer tries to understand why her father was so secretive. At first she thinks it was due to service in the war, during which Reg Greer played a small role in intelligence. This turns out not to be the case. And so we get chapter after chapter about the war: a little insight into Ultra, a look at the Axis seige of Malta, asides about the treatment of colonial and minorities in the British army. All of this ends up being moot. Reg Greer exits the army before the end of the war because of anxiety. Germaine Greer suggests that he may have faked the whole thing. With Reg Greer, everything might have been performance. But we get little insight into his invention of his personae.

Greer has little sympathy for her father, though she loves him dearly. I don't entirely blame her. He comes off as very small minded and uncaring of his daughter. But I think it would have been interesting if Greer could have detailed the societal forces that force people live behind masks. Recently, there was a show on Netflix called Inventing Ana which approached the subject. I would have liked to have read something like that about Australia, with its colonial society that existed, or so I suspect, as an extension of the British Class system.

[Jocelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just made a new tag 'own-physical' for books that I own a physical copy of, because I gave this to the op-shop :-) It has been on my shelf for years, and after re-reading I decided I will not read it again.
The central mystery of Greer's father is fascinating, but the book doesn't work. Too long is spent on genealogy that has already been flagged as a dead end. There is an anger at Australia and Australians that seems disproportionate, and feels like it is anger at her parents spilling out into the home she has left. There are lyrical descriptions of her new homes in Tuscany and England, and a romantic side excursion to India, which again feel like the emotion is not what it seems. "Look Australia, I have a happy home elsewhere! The rest of the world is more beautiful than you"?
Strangest was the abuse of Australians in an 80's summer for wearing summer dresses and short shorts. Was the country not allowed to change while she was away?
Much of it is good, and the sidelight on Greer's family, in particular her relationship with her mother, is intriguing although frustrating.

[Wilma · Rating 3 out of 5]

parts of it good but much of it not very interesting. Greer seeking biographical information on her father who had served in Australian army during World War II and had been not very forthcoming about his ancestry and early life. Also about her relationship with him. Information she had from him was not very accurate so her search is often frustrating. Last quarter of the book she actually finds out details of his past.

[Bobbie Darbyshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t do better than Time Out’s description: ‘Part biography, part diary, part travelogue, its author obsessively scouring three continents for clues to her dead father’s identity.’ Some parts were more engaging than others, but the best of them were very good indeed--evocative, informative and brilliantly written. I’m glad to have read it.

[Carolyn Morick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Partly autobiographical and about her relationship with both her parents and the fact that she desperately searched for facts but could find very very few including her father's parentage. Sad and an explanation(not an apology) for Greer's razor honesty.

[Magai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny. Light. Very well written. It's like reading a novel. And the research that went into it which the author incorporated into her prose, say about pine trees or about India.

[Michael Burge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damned good writing, this. The second Greer book I have read, yet I get the feeling she was right when she claimed (in 2014) it was her best work to date.

Because of the way she captured her pain and transformed it - angst about disconnection and not knowing about her father, and the bedrock that comes from 'Daddy'.

This book is the story of one of the greatest social researchers the world has ever seen, and her courage at turning the investigation onto herself. 'Daddy' is merely the prism through which the view is afforded.

As always, Australia gets more than a mention, for our collective amnesia and social dissembling. If you're ever going to cry for Germaine Greer, this is the one that'll set you off.

[Dave Armishaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a while ago and found it very interesting. Other reviewers for some reason we're critical, however it found it insightful, a very courageous effort to get to know a father who had not been there for her, had lived a strange and self-centered life, in a an effort to understand him. I liked it and was moved by it.

[Roy White · Rating 1 out of 5]

A potentially interesting mystery, in which Greer tries to unravel her father's concealments and deceptions, is obscured by her bizarre crotchets and obsessions. Here is my blog on the book:
http://lippenheimer.wordpress.com/201...

[Sandy Veitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met Germaine Greer at the Royal Exchange in Manchester UK when she was promoting this book. Such an intelligent, insightful woman - a pleasure to meet and chat with her.

[A Holm · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story of Germaine Greer figured out what her father did during the war.