Priestdaddy: A Memoir

During my first night of reading this book, I closed it, turned to my husband, and said, "This book may be too smart for me." By that, of course, I meant that Patricia Lockwood may be too smart for me. She's incredibly witty and sharp, but suddenly somber at times you didn't realize you needed her to be. She definitely knows way more about everything than you (no offense, I bet you're also really smart, fellow reader) and somehow her words on the page are faster than my thoughts, despite the fact that I'm controlling the speed of my own reading. I've basically fallen in love with her husband, Jason, in the way that you fall in love with someone who's the perfect companion to the person you're reading about. In short, you need this book. You will have to read it to believe what her family is like, and you will put it down still not believing. While in the middle of reading this book, I was already plotting my method for mailing my copy to a friend because I knew she would also love it. That's the ultimate book recommendation: when you love it so much that you spend money for someone else to have it.

What an amusing and thoughtful book. I felt as if I was with a good friend as I read this. It starts out with a unique premise, but then spins into a story of departure and return with out ever departing. Faith and religion is like a vaccine: it changes one. And changed this woman forever. Smart, sassy, and bizarre, Patricia comes from an environment that variously encouraged each trait. As well as sunk into a reflective religion that is murky, faithful, and personal.

There was a strange lag for me in the late third of the book as it shifted into a less-frenetic and humorous vein to one that brought all the strands of the memoir together. And weaves in all into one sweet family idyll.

The book started out terrifically--I loved Lockwood's wicked sense of humor about the church--but then just went downhill after first half. I felt like the author was more entranced and in love with her words (often offering three metaphors where one, maybe two, would have sufficed), ignoring the story. As a result, the characters--especially her dad--weren't well developed. I still don't quite understand what makes him tick.

I tried but I could not read "Priestdaddy" ............I am too old or I have no sense of humor. I can't do anything about either of these faults, so I just quit . It seemed to me that some of the unrelated sexual comments were just that......sexual comments. The narrator is an unnamed young girl who marries a boy she met on the internet. This young girl grew up in a crazy family where her dad, the priest always wore only underwear except when he had to put on his suit and collar. Maybe this book was funny, I love a good laugh but I could not find it from page 3 to page 155, where I stopped reading.

"How can a Catholic priest be married... with children?" I wondered, as I read the first page. Throughout this memoir, my curiosity was piqued. This is a book I could NOT put down, and was sad to see end. Lots of ridiculously interesting parts to this story, moments that had me laughing out loud and kept me reading deep into the night. Lockwood's father (the priest) in his underwear... endlessly, caused me to google image him (Who wears tighty whities while jamming out on the guitar? A catholic priest!) The way in which she left home (no spoilers!) was both brave and exciting; her return home, later, with her husband made me laugh out loud; and her spunky relationship with the young seminarian was both feisty and hilarious. In between, the story of her young life as a child in a religious family, how she was raised and how she changed as she grew through it, and who she came to be will move you through all elements of emotion, and you will be left forever changed.

In rare (nowadays) circumstances, the Catholic Church allows a married man to become a priest. What are the odds? And what are the odds that the progeny of such a rare marriage would become an engaging poet? Must be up in the millions, at least.

Yet here we have a memoir written by a young woman who is just that--the poet-daughter of a married Catholic priest. Read it for the unique life story, read it for the haunting embedded imagery, read it because it is hilariously funny--but be sure to read it!

She's a beautiful writer, and the book cruised along at a great pace. There were parts I laughed out loud, and then BOOM, I got to the VOICE chapter. A life-defining scene from her childhood came out of nowhere and then was gone again. But in the short time we were there with her, her father said one sentence that stopped me cold and made me wonder how much more there was to this complicated person that we didn't see. (She hints at that later)

What a singular experience -- strangely hilarious, poignant, insightful, profane, and extremely poetic (unsurprising, given that Lockwood is a poet). This does not read like a standard memoir, it is not entirely linear and it not only concentrates on the author's father as a central force, but also explores her mother, siblings, and husband. She manages to turn an honest eye to some of the grave problems that plague the Catholic church, but does so with sensitivity and wit, an insider's view to how some things go unsaid and stay hidden. Lockwood also weaves in her own gradual separation from being a practicing Catholic while still being immersed in the Church due to her upbringing and family, that sometimes fraught balance between what she believes and what some of the members of the Church believe. Her prose is vibrant and immediate, her characterizations sometimes feel nearly fictional or satirical, the dialog bizarre and interesting and sometimes R-rated. This was unlike anything I've ever read, but I can see why it has shown up on so many best of lists. Highly recommended.

Characters will, naturally, take on new dimensions the more we learn about them. This is not always a positive development. Here, dimension comes with a corresponding decrease in likeability.

Even the writer’s jokes, on the occasion they are funny (tee hee funny, not laugh out loud) overstay their welcome. Humor wears thin when the same jokes—my dad wears only his underwear around nd the house! He pronounces baby bah-bay—are not very funny to begin with, let alone when repeated every five pages.

The author had a very unusual childhood in the depths of RC white patriarchy, with an RC priest for a dad.
Who knew this could even happen ?
Somehow she becomes her own person, unshackled, and with a keen wit.
It dragged in a few places but overall was a very good read.
She has a great way with words and her skill as a poet comes through.

One-note Samba. Her dad became a priest even though he was married with a family. He roams around in his underwear and plays the guitar. Their family is kooky. Repeat. And repeat, and repeat, for 300 plus pages.

In PRIESTDADDY, Patricia Lockwood paints an uproariously funny, irreverent, and unfailingly loving portrait of her parents. Her father, the titular priest(daddy), if fictional would be one of the most unique literary characters around. Lockwood brings a poet's eye and love of language to the proceedings and the results are truly original. Laugh-out-loud funny, trenchant, and surprisingly moving, PRIESTDADDY is truly terrific, and way better than THE TAO OF POOH.

I thought the premise sounded interesting, and the reviews were certainly glowing. But once I tried to read it, it quickly became like swimming through cement. Slow going, searching for nuggets of humor that were initially funny, but quickly became repetitive and uninteresting. Didn't finish.

A brilliant writer, Patricia Lockwood immediately grabs the reader with her immaculate descriptions and never lets go. I've read few writers who have such a way with words, such an unusual angle to their thinking. There is the tension between the author's atheism and her father, a priest, that ties the book together and threads its way through every page. I've never read anything quite like this before; this isn't copycat-anything. You owe it to yourself to see how this poet handles prose; the two are one.

Not at all wholesome, yet wholly and completely raw. Priestdaddy is a hilarious and, at times, deeply personal account of Lockwood's upbringing. Decadent language meets laugh-yourself-to-tears stories. I'm in love!

It's hard to characterize my reaction to this memoir written about growing up in a far from average Catholic family. I was offended by the blasphemous shots taken at the Church and Christianity, while at the same time fascinated by Lockwood's imagination and lively writing style. Her father was a married man who received a dispensation from Rome to become a Catholic priest. He doesn't seem very priestly with his collection of rock guitars and his habit of sitting around the parsonage, next door to the church, in his thin undershorts. It reminds me of some of Dorey Previn's tortured songs, such as "With my father in the attic" although Lockwood offers no hint of active sexual misconduct in her memoir. She does seem to be giving the reader Freudian hints as she so frequently mentions her father's off-duty attire. He becomes a real priest for me when Lockwood writes about the shadowy figures knocking at the front door who are shown into the living room of the home where her blustery father, now a consecrated priest, met with his parishioners "talking, talking, talking" with these arrivals whom she terms "unthinkables" because of their awful tragedies. Hopefully, the priest had dressed in his black pants and shirt and clerical collar for these sessions. Lockwood's mother is treated with very effective black humor as a constant prophet of doom crying in the wilderness, but considering her unique role as the wife of a Catholic priest, it adds a sense of unreality. Lockwood takes every opportunity to bash the faith, but she never gets close to why her father became a priest nor does she explore her mother's reactions. The book left me dissatisfied and feeling like I do when I see a snake. I am fascinated and want to know more, but at the same time, I am repulsed.

Priestdaddy is amazing!

It has the poetic, lyrical quality of Lolita, but is a more fascinating & relatable story. I'm halfway through, and I keep stopping to read sections aloud to my husband. The characters described are so wonderfully, complex and so human - the good, the bad, the quirky all rolled into one messy package of family.

Lockwood is a good writer. It's unfortunate that her self pitying, victimization and skewed view of her parents (did they have ANY redeeming characteristics?) have made this an irritating. self indulgent polemic by a spoiled brat. I can't think of any good features.

What does it mean to have a transcendental experience with a book when you've only finished the first page? If you've read The Tao of Pooh and not Priestdaddy, I'm afraid you would never know that answer. Have you ever seen the Face of God in the form of letters assembled with divine perfection on page after page? If you've neglected to read Priestdaddy and instead have chosen a more earthly and non-miraculous piece of literature like, say, The Tao of Pooh, I'm sorry to say you wouldn't understand. Have you been in the middle of reading a memoir of such grace and power that it's literally been a 300-page, continuous orgasm, only for your book to suddenly undergo transubstantiation...at which point you ate your book believing it to be the Body of Christ? If you've foolishly spent $11 on a paperback copy of The Tao of Pooh that you could not consume with total faith that you were ingesting part of our Lord and Savior, instead of getting the real deal by purchasing Priestdaddy, then, sadly, you know not of what I speak.

I love Patricia Lockwood's poetry and I was crazy-excited to read this memoir. I wasn't disappointed one bit, though I was alternately laughing, crying, slapping away loved ones who tried to talk to me and essentially just feeling my way through an ocean of feels.
I kind of hate reviews where the reader says this book was so good because the author is basically ME! It feels like the work only has merit because the reader thinks it reminds them of themselves. That said, I was baptised Catholic and brought up by Catholic deacons* and it was so interesting and lovely so read a book about a young feminist's experience of growing up in a frankly arcane and gore-obsessed religion and how it stays with you, even once your faith has trickled away. The book lit up some part of me that I rarely contemplate and I'm glad it did.
Besides, even if I wasn't a papist Patricia Lockwood is frankly hilarious and a BEYOND TALENTED writer, reading Priestdaddy was an amazing way to spend a couple of days and I've re-read since, something I never do unless I love a book
*Though my family is nowhere near as cool and quotable as Patricia Lockwood's. We're so white bread we made white bread look ethnic.

This memoir is fantastic. It's got Lockwood's signature humor and poetic grace. Really funny and sweet and lovely.

Also, it's way better than the Tao of Pooh so what the heck are you even waiting for, just order it already.