THE CRITIC'S DAUGHTER: A Memoir by Priscilla Gilman - Review

THE CRITIC'S DAUGHTER: A Memoir (WWNorton) is a unique portrait of a father-daughter relationship. Priscilla Gilman grew up the daughter of Richard Gilman, a famous mercurial writer and theatre critic. The Gilman's lived on the upper west side and they were constantly entertaining the rich and famous artists from the threatre and literary world.

At ten years old, Priscilla's mother, Lynn Nesbit, a successful literary agent left the marriage. We are immersed into the complexity of being a little girl. She gets to see her father as a tortured soul. She is kind to him in her memoir, sharing a full palette of the man he was, including his struggles with his sexuality.

Priscilla's story is honest, raw and courageous. It is one of loss and love, as well as grief and forgiveness. I've read so many memoirs about mother-daughter relationships. This was fresh and different.

Thank you BookBrowse and WWNorton for providing an early copy to be reviewed.

Priscilla Gilman is a former professor of English literature at both Yale University and Vassar College and the author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy (Harper), and The Critic's Daughter, to be published by Norton in February, 2023. She graduated from Yale summa cum laude, with exceptional distinction in the English major. She went on to earn her masters and Ph.D. in English and American literature at Yale and spent two years as an assistant professor of English at Yale and four years as an assistant professor of English at Vassar College before leaving academia in 2006. From 2006-2011, she worked as a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, representing a wide range of literary fiction, inspirational memoir, wellness, and psychology/education books. During these years, she also taught poetry appreciation to inmates in a restorative justice program and to New York City public school students and spoke at numerous early childhood and education conferences and events.

https://priscillagilman.com