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Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography
A deeply reflective memoir weaving together the personal story of Hester Kaplan’s acclaimed biographer father and his fraught effect on her artistic development with a rich portrait of twentieth century intellectual life and a meditation on family intimacy, identity, and the art of writing
Twice Born opens with the death of Hester’s father, Justin Kaplan, known for his award-winning biographies of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Despite his relatively prolific output, Justin rarely wrote, or said, much about himself—even to his daughter. Standing at his open casket, Hester has the realization that while alive, her father never looked her in the eyes.
Hester takes on the challenge of piecing together as intimate a biography of her own father as possible, comparing his story to the lives of his biographical subjects and dissecting the various personas he presents to the world—from which the name “dad,” “daddy,” or even “father” is conspicuously and painfully absent. Parallel to Justin’s story runs Hester’s own journey of development as a writer and a thinker, which begins in the shadow of not only her talented father, but also her novelist mother, and the fiercely protective union the two of them had built, often to the exclusion of their own children.
In sensitive, intimate writing, Kaplan paints a rich picture of the twentieth century literary world that she grew up in, all while reflecting on the deceptive nature of memory, the loneliness of creative pursuits, and the dovetailing paradoxes of biographical and autobiographical writing.
Twice Born opens with the death of Hester’s father, Justin Kaplan, known for his award-winning biographies of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Despite his relatively prolific output, Justin rarely wrote, or said, much about himself—even to his daughter. Standing at his open casket, Hester has the realization that while alive, her father never looked her in the eyes.
Hester takes on the challenge of piecing together as intimate a biography of her own father as possible, comparing his story to the lives of his biographical subjects and dissecting the various personas he presents to the world—from which the name “dad,” “daddy,” or even “father” is conspicuously and painfully absent. Parallel to Justin’s story runs Hester’s own journey of development as a writer and a thinker, which begins in the shadow of not only her talented father, but also her novelist mother, and the fiercely protective union the two of them had built, often to the exclusion of their own children.
In sensitive, intimate writing, Kaplan paints a rich picture of the twentieth century literary world that she grew up in, all while reflecting on the deceptive nature of memory, the loneliness of creative pursuits, and the dovetailing paradoxes of biographical and autobiographical writing.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published October 14, 2025
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About the author
Hester Kaplan
11 books45 followersI write and I teach writing, and I love to talk about books and writing. I come from a family of writers, and have seen how much publishing and book promotion has changed. I really like the ability to talk to readers through sites like Goodreads, and I'd love to hear from you.
"The Tell" is about marriage--a great interest of mine--and the limits of knowing another person. It is also about addiction and lies, and the recovery of trust.
Let me know what you think about the book!
"The Tell" is about marriage--a great interest of mine--and the limits of knowing another person. It is also about addiction and lies, and the recovery of trust.
Let me know what you think about the book!
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 27, 2025
Book Review: Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography by Hester Kaplan
Hester Kaplan’s Twice Born is a piercingly introspective memoir that excavates the silences between a daughter and her celebrated biographer father, Justin Kaplan, while interrogating the very nature of biographical truth. As a woman and avid reader of life-writing, I was profoundly moved by Kaplan’s unflinching examination of paternal absence—not as physical abandonment, but as emotional and creative withholding. The revelation that her father never looked her in the eyes becomes a metaphor for the memoir’s central tension: how do we see those who refuse to be seen, especially when their professional lives are dedicated to illuminating others (like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman)?
What resonated most deeply was Kaplan’s layered exploration of gendered creative inheritance. Her struggle to forge a writing identity under the shadow of both her father’s intellectual legacy and her novelist mother’s fierce partnership with him evoked visceral recognition. The passages describing her mother’s protective union with Justin—a bond that excluded their children—stirred complex emotions about how patriarchal literary dynasties often sacrifice maternal connection for artistic collaboration. Kaplan’s prose, lyrical yet precise, mirrors the biographical fragments she pieces together: sentences are carefully chiseled, yet ache with unresolved longing.
However, the memoir occasionally falters in balancing its dual narratives. While Justin’s story is richly contextualized within 20th-century intellectual circles, Kaplan’s own artistic journey sometimes feels secondary, her hard-won voice overshadowed by his enigma. A deeper interrogation of how her mother’s novelistic influence shaped her (beyond mere exclusion) would have strengthened the feminist critique implicit in her project. Additionally, the meta-commentary on biography-as-genre, though brilliant, risks abstraction in later chapters, distancing readers from the raw intimacy of earlier sections.
Strengths:
-Emotional Archaeology: A masterclass in excavating familial and creative silences with nuance.
-Feminist Undercurrents: Exposes how literary legacies are gendered, often at daughters’ expense.
-Stylistic Brilliance: Kaplan’s prose oscillates between scholarly rigor and poetic vulnerability.
Critiques:
-Narrative Imbalance: Her personal writerly evolution warrants equal depth to Justin’s portrait.
-Missed Intersections: More explicit engagement with motherhood’s role in her artistry would enrich the critique.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A luminous, if uneven, meditation on the wounds and wisdom inherited from creative giants.
Thank you to Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull and Edelweiss for providing a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Final Thought: Kaplan’s greatest achievement is turning her father’s avoidance into a mirror. In scrutinizing his refusal to meet her gaze, she compels us to ask: Who gets to be biographed, and who must settle for the margins?
Hester Kaplan’s Twice Born is a piercingly introspective memoir that excavates the silences between a daughter and her celebrated biographer father, Justin Kaplan, while interrogating the very nature of biographical truth. As a woman and avid reader of life-writing, I was profoundly moved by Kaplan’s unflinching examination of paternal absence—not as physical abandonment, but as emotional and creative withholding. The revelation that her father never looked her in the eyes becomes a metaphor for the memoir’s central tension: how do we see those who refuse to be seen, especially when their professional lives are dedicated to illuminating others (like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman)?
What resonated most deeply was Kaplan’s layered exploration of gendered creative inheritance. Her struggle to forge a writing identity under the shadow of both her father’s intellectual legacy and her novelist mother’s fierce partnership with him evoked visceral recognition. The passages describing her mother’s protective union with Justin—a bond that excluded their children—stirred complex emotions about how patriarchal literary dynasties often sacrifice maternal connection for artistic collaboration. Kaplan’s prose, lyrical yet precise, mirrors the biographical fragments she pieces together: sentences are carefully chiseled, yet ache with unresolved longing.
However, the memoir occasionally falters in balancing its dual narratives. While Justin’s story is richly contextualized within 20th-century intellectual circles, Kaplan’s own artistic journey sometimes feels secondary, her hard-won voice overshadowed by his enigma. A deeper interrogation of how her mother’s novelistic influence shaped her (beyond mere exclusion) would have strengthened the feminist critique implicit in her project. Additionally, the meta-commentary on biography-as-genre, though brilliant, risks abstraction in later chapters, distancing readers from the raw intimacy of earlier sections.
Strengths:
-Emotional Archaeology: A masterclass in excavating familial and creative silences with nuance.
-Feminist Undercurrents: Exposes how literary legacies are gendered, often at daughters’ expense.
-Stylistic Brilliance: Kaplan’s prose oscillates between scholarly rigor and poetic vulnerability.
Critiques:
-Narrative Imbalance: Her personal writerly evolution warrants equal depth to Justin’s portrait.
-Missed Intersections: More explicit engagement with motherhood’s role in her artistry would enrich the critique.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A luminous, if uneven, meditation on the wounds and wisdom inherited from creative giants.
Thank you to Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull and Edelweiss for providing a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Final Thought: Kaplan’s greatest achievement is turning her father’s avoidance into a mirror. In scrutinizing his refusal to meet her gaze, she compels us to ask: Who gets to be biographed, and who must settle for the margins?
January 15, 2026
Hester Kaplan finds herself through discovering her father in this compelling and vulnerable memoir/biography.
There's so much to engage with in this nuanced exploration of her father, Justin Kaplan, an accomplished biographer who I had not heard of before this reading. (I am acquainted with the author Hester Kaplan through her novels and as an MFA program instructor at Lesley University. I am also acquainted with the books of her mother, Anne Bernays, a guest instructor at Lesley during a term I attended.)
Hester wrote "Twice Born" after her father's death. The work inspires me to seek out Justin Kaplin's biographies, particularly "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain", excerpts of which are interspersed. The weave and structure of the book is creative and notable. Hester picks and sifts through her father's life; at times I was confused as to which conversation happened and which was imagined, but soon I was grounded with a line like "I am now older than my father." I admire how Hester pulled this all together.
Hester K. grew up with her famed writer parents in a privileged and connected world in Cambridge, Mass., where neighbors included Julia Child over one corner of her backyard, John Kenneth Galbraith a few doors down, a Nobel prize winner on the street, and a multitude of literati and intellectuals all around. (An oh-so-erudite world foreign to a reader-writer like myself who grew up on rural route four with the egg lady on the corner, the County Farm across the way, and the gun-crazed kid up the hill.)
The book is a deep dive into Justin Kaplan's work habits, social habits, his dynamic with her mother, her sisters and especially Hester and her writerly inclinations. Hester's father kept to himself, protected his writing time and space, but loosened up now and then to play with the kids, party with peers, even recklessly set off firecrackers in one scene. There are incongruencies in his character, which make him all the more interesting. Is he a recluse? An outsider? A party guy? Is he a loving dad, maybe just a quiet one? It reminded me a bit of Jane Fonda's relationship with her father. And sometimes I wondered, "Did Hester really get it right about her dad?" Hmmm.
I found myself analyzing the daughter (the writer) as much as understanding her dad. Maybe that was the point.
Justin Kaplan underwent a great deal of psychotherapy throughout his life, some to cope with the profound loss of losing both parents in early childhood. I appreciated the mention of this and slices of wisdom from Freud, Hester's great, great uncle.
The book dropped many many names of famous people who inhabited the family's lives as well as juicy stories of others, not specified by name. Those were a bit like 'easter eggs' in Taylor Swift's lyrics; I found myself snooping to find out who was the person who hosted that party or committed that crime. It's all findable on google!
The book is interesting throughout. I could read this again, slower next time, and surely get even more out of it. My desk is strewn with of post-it notes scribbled to include in this review. It was almost as if I was channeling the writerly systems of the inhabitants of the work.
Final notes: loved the attention to language and vocabulary throughout, and chuckled at Hester's nickname, Custard. We gain writers' lessons Hester learned from both her accomplished father and mother, not the least of which is this one from her mother. "If you want to write, observe everything."
There's so much to engage with in this nuanced exploration of her father, Justin Kaplan, an accomplished biographer who I had not heard of before this reading. (I am acquainted with the author Hester Kaplan through her novels and as an MFA program instructor at Lesley University. I am also acquainted with the books of her mother, Anne Bernays, a guest instructor at Lesley during a term I attended.)
Hester wrote "Twice Born" after her father's death. The work inspires me to seek out Justin Kaplin's biographies, particularly "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain", excerpts of which are interspersed. The weave and structure of the book is creative and notable. Hester picks and sifts through her father's life; at times I was confused as to which conversation happened and which was imagined, but soon I was grounded with a line like "I am now older than my father." I admire how Hester pulled this all together.
Hester K. grew up with her famed writer parents in a privileged and connected world in Cambridge, Mass., where neighbors included Julia Child over one corner of her backyard, John Kenneth Galbraith a few doors down, a Nobel prize winner on the street, and a multitude of literati and intellectuals all around. (An oh-so-erudite world foreign to a reader-writer like myself who grew up on rural route four with the egg lady on the corner, the County Farm across the way, and the gun-crazed kid up the hill.)
The book is a deep dive into Justin Kaplan's work habits, social habits, his dynamic with her mother, her sisters and especially Hester and her writerly inclinations. Hester's father kept to himself, protected his writing time and space, but loosened up now and then to play with the kids, party with peers, even recklessly set off firecrackers in one scene. There are incongruencies in his character, which make him all the more interesting. Is he a recluse? An outsider? A party guy? Is he a loving dad, maybe just a quiet one? It reminded me a bit of Jane Fonda's relationship with her father. And sometimes I wondered, "Did Hester really get it right about her dad?" Hmmm.
I found myself analyzing the daughter (the writer) as much as understanding her dad. Maybe that was the point.
Justin Kaplan underwent a great deal of psychotherapy throughout his life, some to cope with the profound loss of losing both parents in early childhood. I appreciated the mention of this and slices of wisdom from Freud, Hester's great, great uncle.
The book dropped many many names of famous people who inhabited the family's lives as well as juicy stories of others, not specified by name. Those were a bit like 'easter eggs' in Taylor Swift's lyrics; I found myself snooping to find out who was the person who hosted that party or committed that crime. It's all findable on google!
The book is interesting throughout. I could read this again, slower next time, and surely get even more out of it. My desk is strewn with of post-it notes scribbled to include in this review. It was almost as if I was channeling the writerly systems of the inhabitants of the work.
Final notes: loved the attention to language and vocabulary throughout, and chuckled at Hester's nickname, Custard. We gain writers' lessons Hester learned from both her accomplished father and mother, not the least of which is this one from her mother. "If you want to write, observe everything."
January 21, 2026
"Twice Born," a writer's story, two writers' stories, merges memoir and biography as Kaplan explores her father's work to supplement and challenge what she remembers as his daughter. Not surprisingly, it is itself deeply writerly as well as literary--if the two can be distinguished--examining how we live in words, how words are sometimes meant to conceal, and how those same words still tell our secrets obliquely.
Kaplan combines lyrical memories of childhood on a "faculty row" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with intense reading of anything and everything that might provide clues into her father's hidden early life. Her bravery and honesty about family cultures astonish as she ponders how we love our kin, with all of their flaws and all of our own.
Kaplan combines lyrical memories of childhood on a "faculty row" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with intense reading of anything and everything that might provide clues into her father's hidden early life. Her bravery and honesty about family cultures astonish as she ponders how we love our kin, with all of their flaws and all of our own.
October 30, 2025
I loved this book especially Hester Kaplan's childhood memories of family life and how it revolved around her brilliant and extroverted parents and their social gatherings of 20th century literary stars. I am a fan of Justin Kaplan's biography of Mark Twain, and it was really interesting and kind of moving to see the parallels, for better or worse, between the Clemens' family life and the Kaplans. This is a really well done, enjoyable read that conveys her feelings about emerging from that family as a writer in an intimate and personal (not indulgent) way, while also capturing a mid- to late-century social and intellectual culture that seems lost to time.
December 8, 2025
A very introspective and touching memoir. As someone with a father who is very quiet, private, and... unknowable, I found myself relating to Kaplan's desire to find her father. Some parts of this book were painful to read. I can't help but feel sorry for her for all those times she may have felt abandoned, afraid to reach out and knock on her father's study door. I can relate to being on the edge of someone else's world, and even snooping around, just to find small pieces of things that were never openly shared.
September 20, 2025
Lovely when it's not being indulgent
January 22, 2026
Really enjoyed this book! Beautifully written, amazing stories. An interesting look at the literary social scene at the time, complex family dynamics and the unique relationship between father and daughter. Would recommend!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews