Description

An exquisitely rendered portrait of a unique fatherdaughter relationship and a moving memoir of family and identity

Growing up on the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1970s in an apartment filled with dazzling literary and artistic characters Priscilla Gilman worshiped her brilliant adoring and mercurial father the writer theater critic and Yale School of Drama professor Richard Gilman But when Priscilla was ten years old her mother renowned literary agent Lynn Nesbit abruptly announced that she was ending the marriage The resulting cascade of disturbing revelationsabout her parents hollow marriage her fathers double life and tortured sexual identityfundamentally changed Priscillas perception of her father as she attempted to protect him from the depression that had long shadowed him

A wrenching story about what it means to be the daughter of a demanding parent a revelatory window into the impact of divorce and a searching reflection on the nature of art and criticism The Critics Daughter is an unflinching account of loss and griefand a radiant testament of forgiveness and love