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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
4.5*
I picked this up because I enjoyed NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS so much, and I wasn't disappointed in the narrative, though I was disappointed somewhat in various of the personalities depicted therein. For me, this was a good example of a life I could have never tolerated living being made explicable, even relatable.
I've never read any of Ms. Lockwood's poetry, and I probably won't, but her facility with words leads to some great imagery in these pages.
I picked this up because I enjoyed NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS so much, and I wasn't disappointed in the narrative, though I was disappointed somewhat in various of the personalities depicted therein. For me, this was a good example of a life I could have never tolerated living being made explicable, even relatable.
I've never read any of Ms. Lockwood's poetry, and I probably won't, but her facility with words leads to some great imagery in these pages.
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Murder
medium-paced
I can recommend this to almost anyone.
Beautiful but weird. Lyrical and unreal. Confusing, which is a feeling I think she would enjoy being the cause of.
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Patricia Lockwood is quite possibly a genius. Reading her work gives me the surprisingly lovely sensation of being reintroduced to the language that I have been reading, writing, and speaking in for over twenty years. A poet making her first go at a memoir, Lockwood's writing dances, shimmers, and confounds. She also loves a good dirty joke.
The joyous buoyancy of Lockwood's style distracts from the fragmented structure of Priestdaddy. The memoir is mostly a character study of Lockwood's father, a red neck Catholic priest who loves action movie trilogies because, duh; the Father, Son, & Holy Ghost. (You can easily picture Will Ferrel relishing a role like this in a movie adaptation.) However, a little more than halfway through Priestdaddy, the focus shifts away from Father Lockwood to flirt with coming of age vignettes and cultural musings about the Catholic Church and the Midwest. Lockwood's mind is such a fun and compelling place to spend time in that, for the most part, I barely missed a more conventional plot format.
The joyous buoyancy of Lockwood's style distracts from the fragmented structure of Priestdaddy. The memoir is mostly a character study of Lockwood's father, a red neck Catholic priest who loves action movie trilogies because, duh; the Father, Son, & Holy Ghost. (You can easily picture Will Ferrel relishing a role like this in a movie adaptation.) However, a little more than halfway through Priestdaddy, the focus shifts away from Father Lockwood to flirt with coming of age vignettes and cultural musings about the Catholic Church and the Midwest. Lockwood's mind is such a fun and compelling place to spend time in that, for the most part, I barely missed a more conventional plot format.
The ultimate PK book. Poetic, sometimes (to my taste) distractingly so. Funny. Light, like a book of funny stories, occasionally intensified by the crimes of the Catholic Church.
Priestdaddy kicks off uproariously funny. And it's good stuff, but around one third of the way in I started to wonder, is this it? Reader, that was not it. No. It takes a turn, and you realize that all the bonkers humor was a setup, just one take on a story that of course could go a lot of different ways. I loved the book most when it was lyrical and reflective, because Lockwood's writing is incandescent and in those moments she sounds like no one else under the sun. I'm glad I read this book now, in Kansas, getting ready to write something of my own, because this was the kind of template that makes you quiver in fear, but also wonder what might be possible.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced