Also a Poet: A Memoir

by Ada Calhoun

A staggering memoir from New York Times best-selling author Ada Calhoun tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet, featuring exclusive archival audio from literary and art world legends, living and dead.

When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started 40 years earlier.

As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.

The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us; when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it.

In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry, Biography, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, New York

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Ada Calhoun is the author of the novel Crush. Her memoir Also a Poet was named one of the best books of 2022 by the New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post. Prior books include New York Times–bestseller Why We Can't Sleep, Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, and St. Marks Is Dead.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook…read by Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
….6 hours and 33 minutes

Frank O’Hara was a famous poet and art curator at The Museum of Art in New York.

His most famous poem was written in 1959 called ‘The Day Lady Died’….a tribute to the jazz singer Billy Holiday…. He wrote it quickly after she died.

I spent almost as many hours last night, reading details about Frank O’Hara — finding some of his poems - reading summaries about them — as I did listening to this memoir/biography itself.
I wasn’t familiar with Frank O’Hara…. and the only thing I knew about his daughter Ada O’Hara — was from reading her non-fiction book called , “Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis”…..(it was good!… and impeccably researched)

In “Also a Poet”
I got a little confused at times listening to this memoir/biography…….as to what was the main focus of it.
…Everybody was a poet…
…Everybody was a little bohemian…
…Everbody loved New York…
…Everyone was an alcoholic…
…Everybody was gay…
…Everybody was a genius…
…Everyone had secrets and insecurities…
…Everyone wanted to be seen and have their work be seen...
…Everyone wanted to shine!!!

I wasn’t sure if this book was to be more about Frank O’Hara, the famous poet himself…
or Ada’s father, Peter Schjeldahl, who interviewed Frank O’Hara —(Ada found unfinished interview cassette tapes of her father interviewing Frank), or the phenomena of Ada finishing the her father’s biography at all, or Ada’s complex relationship with ‘her’ father, or the complex relationship that Frank O’Hara had with his sister, Maureen, executor of Frank O’Hara’s estate, or if a main purpose mattered ‘at all’.
In other words while I get that in part this book a tribute to Frank ‘O Hara (it got me visiting Google) ….it was also a tribute to a time in history when life was Hippie-ish-arty-bohemian wildly crazy-fun….with a lot of geniuses portraying their work and lifestyle behaviors.

I found ‘parts’ of this ‘creative-bio-memoir’ entertaining—‘solely’ due to the hilarious crafting of the way this audiobook was put together itself. (dead voices from the past?)…
YES! ….from the old interview cassette tapes that were found from the 1970’s.

Kudos to Ada Calhoun for taking on this project— only to discover halfway into it that ‘she’ (also a poet) had a lot more onion peeling to do about her father, the renowned art critic, than simply finish her father’s (also a poet) biography of Frank O’ Hara. (also a poet)

For me the heart of the story was the narrative between Ada and her father Peter Schjeldahl: a daughter’s memories of a complicated relationship with ‘Dad’.

“Also A Poet” is a conglomerate of family history, history Legacies, Art, writing, a poet, several poets, friends….and a daughters reckoning her relationship with her dad.

The audiobook with the varied voices were entertaining.
It was inspiring to learn that Ada’s father thought this was Ada’s best book to date.
Ada Calhoun moved me too. She’s a heartwarming standout throughout.


4.5 rating up

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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.

[Ken]

For the record, non-fiction writer Ada Calhoun is *not* "also a poet." Her book wanted to be a biography of Frank O’Hara but it’s not that, either. It almost wound up being a memoir, but alas, it’s not quite that, either.

Honestly, her book had no choice in the matter. Her father Peter Schjeldahl had collected all manner of taped interviews of people who knew Frank O’Hara, intending to write a biography of the New York School poet, but it all came to naught, partly because of his make-up and mostly because of the recalcitrance of O’Hara’s sister Maureen Granville-Smith, who is the literary executor of Frank’s estate.

Upon discovery of the tapes, daughter Ada decides to fill Dad’s big shoes by writing Frank’s bio herself, picking up where he left off. Only there’s this problem called Maureen Granville-Smith, still alive and well, still recalcitrant, and every bit as stubborn about blocking a bio by Ada as she was a bio by her dad.

This leaves Ada with little choice but to write a semi-biographical O’Hara book and a semi-memoir of herself book — the story of her attempt to write an O’Hara biography, how it brought to a head some lifelong issues she’d had with her dad, and how the manuscript wrestled on the floor, two genres fighting it out to a draw.

Thus you get word-for-word excerpts from Peter’s tapes of people who knew Frank O’Hara because Dad gave Ada permission to try where he failed. She fails, too, and provides a transcript of her phone conversation with Frank’s sister, who comes across as a termagant sure that no one can do her boy Frank justice.

Weird.

But the book itself is weirdly wonderful. It leans more frankly in a biography kind of way in the first half, then in a decisive memoir kind of way in the second. What is it about these artistic fathers who don’t know how to love their children, even when their children enter the same trade, in this case, the trade of writing? Rhetorical question.

Interesting? Firstly the excerpts from the tapes. Then, as the story builds, the dynamic between father and daughter. And trivia. Lots of trivia and odd bits, like Ada sharing her favorite O’Hara poem, which led me to my copy of The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara edited by Donald Allen. For the curious, here it is:


To the Harbormaster

I wanted to be sure to reach you;
though my ship was on the way it got caught
in some moorings. I am always tying up
and then deciding to depart. In storms and
at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide
around my fathomless arms, I am unable
to understand the forms of my vanity
or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder
in my hand and the sun sinking. To
you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage
of my will. The terrible channels where
the wind drives me against the brown lips
of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet
I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
if it sinks, it may well be in answer
to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
the waves which have kept me from reaching you.


No, not O’Hara’s most famous poem by any means, but probably one that speaks to Ada Calhoun because she reads “father-daughter” into it (whereas O’Hara had some other relationship in mind).

Another oddity: one of O’Hara’s (who worked at the MoMA) favorite paintings is Rembrandt’s The Polish Rider. Again, not something that comes to mind when one thinks of the Dutch Master smoking cigars while New York poets originally from Grafton, MA, (of all nearby places!) might choose one of his works as “great,” but Frank kind of liked the looks of the horseman. You can find him riding online. The Pole, not Frank.

OK, wrap-up time.

Who would like this unaligned genre of a book? Certainly peeps interested in poetry in general and O’Hara in particular. Or fans of the anything-goes NYC scene in the 50s and 60s (even were he never struck and killed in July of '66 by a dune buggy at the beach on Fire Island, I fear O’Hara’s liver would have taken him down soon enough). Or readers with a particular interest in problematic family relationships— in this case, a daughter who must forge a separate peace because the daddy she so wants to impress is who he is, as imperfect as any Y-chromosome can be.

If you fit one of those descriptions, you should pick it up. If not and you're curious, pick it up as well. Over, out, and also a poet,

Ken C.

[Gretchen Rubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating memoir about a complex father-daughter relationship...plus Frank O'Hara.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this book is mediocre. Calhoun writes well enough for a journalist, but she offers almost nothing of intellectual value. She keeps wondering why Maureen Granville-Smith, the head of Frank O'Hara's estate, won't let her quote from his poems and letters. It comes down to this: "You seem confident, but you don't know that much about poetry" (p. 153). Calhoun presents Granville-Smith as the villain. To my mind, she is clearly the sane one.

Calhoun says twice to Granville-Smith, "I'm troubled that not everyone knows about O'Hara. I think more people should know about him" (p. 150, 153). What a bizarre claim! O'Hara is one of the most loved poets in America, and one of the few that young writers still read for pure joy. Granville-Smith has the right response: "his legacy is fine. He doesn't need any help from you" (150). More to the point, "People know him through his work."

If you want to get a sense of Calhoun's own literary judgment, read this: "I kept noticing ways in which his work is less available than you'd think it might be, given his stature. O'Hara's poetry is not available in eBook, for example" (34–35). Calhoun also regrets all the "projects for which [Granville-Smith has] withheld permissions—including, most surprisingly to me, a picture book about Frank O'Hara by a respected children's book author" (35). I don't even know where to start with that one.

Calhoun implies that Granville-Smith is homophobic and probably trying to suppress O'Hara's gay life. No. She just takes a far more serious approach to literature and to a poet's legacy. The poems make things pretty clear, anyways.

For better or worse, you learn very little about O'Hara's life in this book. You also learn next to nothing about his poetry, or about any poetry. ("I'm no poetry expert," p. 161; "I'm not coming at it as an expert but as a fan," p. 153. Fair enough, I guess.) I didn't expect a standard 400-page biography, but the balance here between personal memoir and literary biography really falters. Regarding the subtitle, we eventually learn that it's not actually a book "about O'Hara—or even really about my father. It was about me" (162). You might want to know that from the outset.

Personally, I wish that Calhoun had simply published her father's interviews, or at least had quoted more extensively from them. They are full of gossip and probably not to be relied upon, but they help us see into an important milieu.

That said: the book is mediocre, not bad. The writing is competent. You won't lose interest. Calhoun has a good ear for humor, especially for one-liners. It's pretty satisfying to hear her mother say to the obnoxious poet father, who has just described MacDowell as lame: "Your whole life is a writer's colony" (185). There are many other good moments.

tl;dr Ok book. Very little to do with Frank O'Hara. Author is competent and driven (18 books in ten years! see p. 200) but not talented enough.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the author's struggle to write a biography of the poet Frank O'Hara, framed within the story of her relationship with her father, famous art critic Peter Schjeldahl, a brilliant man but also an alcoholic, emotionally distant father (Calhoun writes that her efforts to attract and keep his attention left her emotionally damaged but also a more interesting person as well as spurring her on to become as excellent a writer as she could be).

In writing about these two men (Frank O'Hara emerges as perhaps a kinder although somewhat enigmatic a character as the author's father), Calhoun touches upon the artist/writer scene of the 1970s. Her father has given her the tapes of interviews he conducted when he was attempting to write his biography of O'Hara (his failure to write this bio is, not surprisingly, also a reason for Calhoun to succeed in writing one of her own). These tapes reveal much about not only O'Hara but also the writers and painters he lived and worked among.

The book is so well-written that I immediately began reading another of Calhoun's books, Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis--also a deeply engaging book about the obstacles and trials faced by the Gen X generation she belongs to--but that will be another review, coming soon!). Although there were moments when I felt irritated by her obsession with her relationship with her father, I was also moved by the frustrated love she feels as well as the fact that although he clearly does love her, he is unable to express it or even stay attuned to it. He is, as he says, devoted ultimately to only one thing--not his daughter or his devoted wife but to his writing.

Frank O'Hara is a brilliant poet, who I have loved deeply over the past 45 years, reading and rereading. He is the reason I chose the book to begin with the story she tells about him, the glimpses of the man he was, were gratifying and revealing. She writes with insight about him, as well as an increasing clarity as she interviews people who knew him, as well as listens to the interviews of the people who knew him in her father's tapes from the 1970s. It is a shame that O'Hara's sister refuses to share his letters and other documents so that a fuller biography could be written of this important figure.

I also loved the picture of the lower East Side neighborhood inhabited by artist during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. That world is mostly gone. Calhoun's description of the neighborhood post-pandemic, along with the loss through fire of the apartment she grew up in which seems to also be (in addition to being a real event) a symbol of the end of a certain kind of artistic world no longer possible in today's high rent New York City.

I am also reading Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art (by Mary Gabriel), an account of the New York School of painters from the 1930's-1950's. This book also describes the world in which Calhoun grew up and in which O'Hara wrote, the neighborhoods and the community of struggling artists and writers. It's a happy coincidence that I am reading both at the same time as the books seem to resonate with each other, almost in a dialogue that creates a richer understanding, or at least picture of the artistic world. (Ninth Street goes further in illuminating the political events and climate that those artists lived in and were effected by).

Not only was I led to read another of Calhoun's work, I also have been inspired to reread O'Hara's.

And isn't that the best result of any biography of a writer--to bring us back to the work itself?

[Rachel Gonzalez]

I listened to the audiobook (which is exclusively out on audible, which is, I know, but hmu if you want my login) and that was great because you could actually hear the interview recordings.

So much of this book was so beautiful and I love Frank O'Hara and that's mostly how I feel about it.

One bit of critique, there was a bit of a lack of dots connecting about the way status and privileged get applied. It seemed like the author really wanted us to understand that she financially stood on her own, as notable when specifically mentioning her son goes to public school, or that her brooklyn apt is already too small for her fam and she couldn't realistically house her parents when they are temporarily displaced, how she chose to go to college where she could get a full ride instead of an ivy. However, she'll also mention her life spent in the Village, and being the granddaughter of the person who invented the lining for airline vomit bags, and her parents' trip taking, and their house in the catskills, and her house near theirs to which she went during the pandemic, and her dad's fireworks parties for 2000 people, and her dad's friendships with steve martin and myriad icons of the 1960s-on art scene. I feel like it is very clear that how she grew up makes it extremely difficult to accurately calibrate your expectations for financial comfort and access to the rest of the world.

I think there is a similar parallel about creative independence. I think this one is a bit better meditated upon because it's super tied up in how she as a daughter responded to her dad as father and a cultural figure. Even so, it clear she believes in working very hard and has done so in order to earn her acclaim separate from her dad, while sort of not fully acknowledging that working hard is almost never good enough. It's just not possible that being the child of this critic and poet of repute who pals around with some of the biggest figures of the new york arts and literary scene never opened doors. Again, it feels more palatable because it's so tied up in contextual angst and doesn't seem to really be/want to be calling to the outer world. Even so, it gets a little eye-roll-y when she expresses regret for what things could have been in her career if she'd just gone to an ivy and gotten the expected pedigree for a writer.

A succinct comment: great read, so glad I did it, I love frank so much and it was so interesting to hear about this world to which I don't have access and to hear about a person considering the influencing factors in her life, incl. the monumental significance of her father. Beautifully written. Ya gotta have some patience for pretty big myopia as it relates to how the rest of the world operates.

[Ashton Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We leave behind more than our work, though. We stay behind in memories people have of us rolling around in the snow on Sixth Avenue, throwing dorm suite cocktail parties, having food fights with children, swimming in the ocean at
night.”

“There have been moments when we (my father and I) waved from opposite shores, or when, briefly, our boats drew close. After one of our movie nights, my father sent me an email that read:
If I weren’t your dad, I’d wish I were. Or your brother or poker buddy or grocer. Anything, to know you”

A really interesting biography/autobiography centering around the author herself and the great American poet Frank O’Hara (who happens to be very near and dear to me). I will always love learning about the bright burning life he lived in his too short time here, and how everyone in New York fell in love with him, because how could you not? One day the true O’Hara biography will be written if his sister Maureen will finally allow it, and I’ll be waiting to get my hands on it as soon as possible.

[Sparrow .]

Frank O’Hara is lost, like the spot where Noah’s Ark landed. Any attempt to find him just leads to more michegas. Frank lived in the moment and died in the moment, and the only place to find him is right now, in the place where you are sitting – or standing, waiting for the F train.

Everyone around Frank was a jerk, or so it seems. He was like the eye of a jerk hurricane. To live outside the law you must be honest, to quote Frank’s opposite, and most people are not. Poetry and art: dangerous professions. Like gambling and prostitution. There are no virgins in whorehouses, my dad used to say. Except for Frank, I say.

Ada tried to write a conventional book about Frank O’Hara, but the gods intervened, and gave her this heart-wheeling wonder of a tale. (And don’t forget; she’s a Sanskrit scholar!)

[Susan Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t finish it. The authors comments about her father seemed petty and mean in places. Just couldn’t keep reading, although I’m interested in Frank O’Hara. But not the daughters relationship with her family.

[Rona Maynard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book knowing little about Frank O'Hara, a fair bit about the electric New York scene of his day (thanks to Ninth Street Women) and a lot about about the dazzling prose of Peter Schjeldahl, whose art criticism and cancer memoir have made me a longtime fan. Ada Calhoun, his daughter, changed her name to escape his shadow and tells the reader more than once that her dad is the real writer in the family. Not so. Calhoun is not the kind of unforgettable writer who stops you with verbal pyrotechnics. A whole other kind of magician, she teases out the pattern that joins a daughter's neglect, a father's monumental ego and the legacy of a hero-worshipped poet gone too soon. She tells a confounding story with humanity, grace and a keen eye for the revelatory detail.

An only child, young Ada grew up knowing that she didn't much interest her father, a narcissist of the first order (she doesn't use that term but it applies). The household revolved around Schjeldahl; his self-sacrificing wife essentially gave him "a 50-year writing residency." O'Hara's poetry served as the bridge between Ada, a precocious reader yearning for proof that she was loved, and Schjeldahl, a sometime poet in his youth. The title Also a Poet ostensibly refers to O'Hara's tossed-off obit in the New York Times, but also nods to Schjeldahl's unrealized ambitions.

When Calhoun goes on a quest to complete the O'Hara biography her father took on and never finished, things don't unfold the way she planned. Retracing Schjeldahl's steps in a series of interviews, she sees what he was incapable of seeing--the tragic heedlessness of the New York scene that lionized O'Hara (Peter Orlovsky jerking off at O'Hara's funeral, William Styron proclaiming to a houseful of revelers, in the presence of a child, "All we do in this house is twist and fuck!"). The stakes rise when Schjeldahl is diagnosed with advanced cancer.

I won't give away the the final epiphany, although the media have already done so. I will say Calhoun got both less and more than she expected. What Emily Dickinson said of poetry, that it made her feel as if the top of her head were being lifted off, is also true of this exceptional book.

[Jennifer Mills Kerr · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're interested in the life of Frank O'Hara, check out Brad Gooch's biography. Better yet, read his poems. The title of this book is misleading. The book's copy: a "staggering memoir" is nearly comical. This was a slowly paced book that pulled in different directions... journal, memoir, biography and cultural history.

Calhoun didn't have legal access to anything but her father's interview tapes... so she was limited, certainly. But these recorded conversations added little interest. Half the time, I wasn't convinced they were relevant.

Calhoun's father is a troubled alcoholic; she seeks to redeem his past (and perhaps herself) through taking on his biography of O'Hara. Sounds interesting, but I couldn't finish reading the book.

Writing a memoir takes incredible courage & honesty. Calhoun hedges her bets, keeping the camera on her father, childhood memories, old interviews about O'Hara, O'Hara's sister & literary executor-- everywhere but her present day self. What's at stake here? Why is she telling this story? I read up to page 95, and I had no clue.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been consuming a lot of work about complex and difficult father-daughter relationships lately… but this ain’t no Cowboy Carter! Excellent writing but a dismal story. Some of the best artists are truly the worst people. Look forward to reading more by Ada Calhoun (although maybe I have already read some of her work as a celebrity ghostwriter).

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The descriptions of bohemian New York City in the 60s and 70s left me sad and anxious. A lot of ugly behaviors from ugly people. Once it got into a straight memoir, it got better, but the distaste of the previous part permeated. Read for the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club, I will enjoy the author chat.

[Venky · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Hera · Rating 4 out of 5]

picked this up from the library and didn't know what I was getting into but it was one of those books that you finish and need the day to think about.

things I am thinking about?
- my own relationship with my parents
- gratitude for where i live and how i was raised
- living is only as fun as the people you get to spend it with :)
- the Beats generation

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book (and the large font!) are deceiving. This is a book about trying to write a biography of Frank O'Hara, following on her father's attempts to write same. Scant little about Frank O'Hara, let alone his poetry or process. 2.5 stars. The issue, for me, is how this mediocre book is called "stunning" by Goodreads's own description, and how it deserved the positive, if not glowing, article in the New York Times book review. I hope someday someone will write an expose describing how books make "Best Book of (Year)" lists, "Top Ten" lists, and treatments in the Times' book review. Inquiring minds!

[Clint · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half was interesting when focused on New York in the 60s and 70s. But overall, the relationship between daughter and father just wasn’t that engaging and the narrative seemed reaching. The book had potential to be something more, but got lost on too many surface level daddy issues and not enough O’Hara.

[Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Some of this was so wonderful. The book came alive when Calhoun talks about her family. The chapters that covered the transcripts of the O’Hara tapes became too much…I wanted her writing which was wonderful, not the words if people from a time and place long gone. Almost outstanding.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not feeling the hype with this one. I’m not in with the in crowd.

The “in crowd,” in this case, being those who belong to the world of art critics and mid-century New York poets. This is definitely Calhoun’s world, and the world of her family. Her father moved to the city in order to follow one of his own heroes, the poet Frank O’Hara. Later, he, being Peter Schjeldahl, became a celebrated art critic.

O’Hara died young, in his prime. Schjeldahl brokered a biography deal with a publisher and contacted O’Hara’s sister and executor of his estate for the rights. It’s a project that never got off the ground, and Calhoun didn’t even know about it until, 40 years later, she discovered her father’s interview tapes in the basement of their home.

Calhoun is a successful journalist and ghost writer herself, so she decided to resurrect the project, succeeding where her father had failed. Part of that competitiveness, to me, feels like an intrinsic part of any journalist whose ambition is to get difficult people to open up to them. But it goes beyond that, too, to the complicated relationship Calhoun had with her father. Her father loved her but barely seemed to notice her, even when it came to their similarities, like their love for O’Hara’s poetry.

The general outline of this project—the fact that it’s a memoir rather than a biography—should tell you enough to know Calhoun also failed. The sister, Maureen, has particular ideas about her brother’s legacy. I’m not even saying she’s wrong to assume father and daughter might pay outsized attention to O’Hara’s sexuality, or the gossipy nature of his friends group. What biography can fully encapsulate the complexity of the subject matter’s life anyway? Does it have to be 1,000 pages long, like RED COMET by Heather Clark, the Sylvia Plath biography I read for the BookTube Prize a couple of years ago and continue to gush about? :P Maybe.

I do think Maureen, from her phone conversation with Calhoun anyway, is incorrect about the definition of a biography. What Maureen wants is literary criticism—academic scholarship of her brother’s work, and nothing more. A biography, technically, doesn’t have to contain an artist’s work at all. It is, indeed, all about his relationships and life markers, even the unsavory ones. I dunno, this whole tangential question about “what is a biography” interested me more than many of the aspects of this book. Certainly more than Calhoun’s grandiose and, imho, self-pitying response as to wonder “why does anyone write anything?” Come on, lady. You’re a successful author; you should know not all writing projects are created equal. This isn’t an existential issue.

And if it is for Calhoun, it’s because her own relationship with her father looms large in this book. So maybe Maureen is right to wonder how the hell her brother fits into all of it. I wonder that, too. I realize Calhoun isn’t an academic, and wouldn’t write some sort of dissertation on O’Hara’s work. But she claimed that she (and her father) were moved by said poetry and frankly, I have no idea why. That was the real misdirect of this book, and I’m not the only reviewer who was frustrated.

Amateur reviewer, that is. The professional reviewers gushed over this book, but frankly this might speak to it’s “in crowd” nature. They already know all of these artists and critics. As an apparently uncultured person, alas, I have little knowledge and less emotional attachment to these folks. And frankly, Calhoun didn’t make them compelling to me.

The ”memoir” part of this book that worked best was the visceral writing when it came to the father/daughter relationship. There be the feels. At the same time, I had to switch over from physical to audiobook with this one, because all the block text from interviews was grating after awhile. For me, it worked better to hear them. But then it got me to thinking—this is more of a multimedia project than a book. This “genre” grates on me a bit when judging it against other nonfiction in the BookTube Prize. Something feels unfinished here, like Calhoun slap-dashing her quotes together rather than creating a compelling narrative. The interviews turned into a weak part for me. But the other audio—Schjeldahl on the phone with his wife when he thought the recorder was off, or Ada’s “home radio” clips as a little girl—were something else. There’s something here in this book, sure. But it’s not as compelling or cohesive as it ought to be.

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calhoun is at her parents' East Village apartment searching for old toys when she stumbles across materials for a project long since abandoned by her father, poet and art critic Peter Schjeldahl. It's a box of cassette tapes--interviews Schjeldahl recorded in the 1970s with friends and colleagues of poet Frank O'Hara. It's a treasure trove of firsthand insights into O'Hara's life, but somehow, Schjeldahl's proposed biography of O'Hara never materialized. As Calhoun starts listening to the tapes, she convinces herself that she can succeed where her father failed. She determines to write that O'Hara biography herself, and in the process, shed new light on a writer both she and her father love--a rare area of common ground for the two of them. And maybe, a part of her hopes, she can finally prove to her father that she's worthy of the interest and attention he's never seemed to have for her.

Also a Poet is an unexpected mix of personal memoir and biography of an entirely unrelated person, though mainly the former. It quickly turns into a book about Calhoun's stymied attempt to write a book about Frank O'Hara. It's the kind of thing I tend to hate in documentaries, when the process is laid bare, the making of the hot dogs is shown, and the film devolves into a lament over the obstacles making it difficult to continue making the film. But I had a different reaction to Calhoun's genre-blending, disapproval-seeking book. I admire how she ended up using the Frank O'Hara tapes as a jumping-off point into an examination of a very complicated father-daughter relationship. It becomes clear that that tender spot is where the real story was all along. In any case, I came away eager to read more from Calhoun, whom I've enjoyed in the past--and probably some Frank O'Hara too.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up to read about Frank O'Hara, since I am a big fan, and found the first half of the book, largely about him, strangely rough going: on the Audible version, I had trouble deciphering the accents and articulation, amid background noise, of the recorded interviews from the 1970s and like Calhoun, found many of the male New York School poets and artists interviewed insufferable when heard in the 2020s. But I was quite moved by the second half of the book, which is half family memoir, half feminist manifesto. O'Hara's sister and accidental literary executor, Maureen Granville-Smith, as occasionally articulate as she is, and heatedly protective of her brother's memory, is one of the villains of the book from the start -- several reviews here mention the suspense of the biography writing thread of the story, but it's clear from the early pages that Calhoun is not allowed to quote from O'Hara's poems, so to me, it was obvious what happens there.

Ironically, it does turn out to be a better book when the would-be biographer is forced to focus on the father-daughter relationship between herself and her art critic ("also a poet") father Peter Schjeldahl. Schjeldahl comes across as a man "reckless, mercurial, occasionally mean", but, in the end, interesting -- if only as an equal to his daughter. None of us gets to control our own story and it's useful to be reminded of this. Recommended for fans of Janet Malcom, whose The Silent Woman is appropriately invoked at the turning point in the book.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this one. It is definitely well-written and I think the last half that delves into the author's relationship with her father is quite interesting since their relationship was so complicated. But the first half, being basically a half-finished biography of Frank O'Hara, didn't do anything for me and I don't think meshed with the last half of the book, which was so much stronger. I understand that Frank O'Hara was an important figure in the lives of both the author and her father. I also understand that the journey of trying to finish the O'Hara biography that her father abandoned was what led the author on the path to this memoir. And yet, they just didn't go together at all. There is such a stark contrast to the first and last halves of this book. It didn't feel like she wanted to write a memoir at all. It felt like she wanted to write a Frank O'Hara biography which she was then (also) forced to abandon when she failed to secure the literary rights from O'Hara's sister.

[josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

can’t believe how imperfectly this fits into like five different genres and how it somehow exceeds genre conventions for all of them? really really loved. also if you don’t listen to the audiobook you will be denying yourself an absolute treat of audiobook production

[Katy Koivastik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say enough good things about Ada Calhoun’s piercing memoir of the complicated relationship she had with her father, the writer and art critic Peter Schjeldahl.

A brilliant writer herself, Calhoun weaves together childhood memories, the audiotapes her father made in trying to craft a biography of the poet Frank O’Hara, and her own journey as the daughter of an often diffident parent.

An episode in the book particularly resonates with me: Ada finds a copy of a favorite book she had given her father for Christmas in the trash. When she calls him on it, her father shrugs it off. Ada stews about it for some time. When she brings it up again, Schjeldahl says he can’t apologise because he can’t guarantee he won’t do it again.

On the one hand, her father is being honest, if rudely blunt. On the other, it seems to me a heartbreaking rejection of Ada’s attempt to find common ground.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sarah Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messy biography, standout memoir.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a weird marvelous book. Perfect for a public humanities type thing.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Also a Poet offers a complex look at the relationship between the author and her father, the poet and art critic Peter Schjeldahl. While I do not think I would enjoy spending time with any of the people in this memoir, I was fascinated by the glimpse into the 1970s New York art scene and its luminaries such as Willem de Kooning. Read if you enjoy: challenging relationships, complicated feelings

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle to Ada Calhoun’s memoir – Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me – describes the trajectory of this book. A long-time fan of Frank O’Hara, my mistake in buying the book was to get the emphasis wrong. I started the book reveling in her excerpts from her father’s long-ago interviews with friends of Frank, laughing out loud every few pages. And then the center of gravity steadily shifted, first to the failures of her father, then to the failures of their relationship. The writing is sure and strong and I finished the book in one reading.

Hidden behind the main argument are other interesting characters. One is Maureen, Frank’s sister and executor of his estate. From the beginning the foreshadowing is so strong we know what will happen, and when it does in Chapter 20 it’s a bruising moment. Calhoun does it justice. Another is Spencer, her father’s best friend and who, upon hearing of her difficulties with Maureen, mentions Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, a worthy predecessor to this book. Spencer takes some hard knocks. I hope he doesn’t write his own memoir.

Both Ada and her father Peter had hoped to write a biography of O’Hara, both stopped in their tracks by Maureen. Calhoun sums it up:

“He did not sway her, of course, and neither did I, but between the two of us we were able to gather information about Frank O’Hara and transmit it. Between us, it took forty-five years, and this is not the way either of us envisioned it happening, but here we are.”

Exactly. This is a book for fans of the family memoir, not for those of O’Hara.