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Priestdaddy  By  cover art

Priestdaddy

By: Patricia Lockwood
Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
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Editorial reviews

Editors Select, May 2017

I want to be careful about the way in which I write about this book. Not because the subject matter is scandalous (it's not), but because, like all beautifully complex things, it'd be easy to mislabel or to put Lockwood's memoir in a box, to diminish its magnificence and, ultimately, the spell it cast over me. It deserves more than that. So, I'll say this: Great writers are often lauded for having an original voice. Well, Lockwood has that and then some (including an amazing - and amazingly absurd - sense of humor). More importantly, she's an original thinker whose devotion to language and words and poetry - her primary trade - can be felt in every line, every turn of phrase, and every bit of confounding imagery that seems to reveal some hidden, intangible truth that normally exists just outside of fingertips' reach. —Doug, Audible Editor

Publisher's summary

From Patricia Lockwood - a writer acclaimed for her wildly original voice - a vivid, heartbreakingly funny memoir about having a married Catholic priest for a father.

Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.

In Priestdaddy, Lockwood interweaves emblematic moments from her childhood and adolescence - from an ill-fated family hunting trip and an abortion clinic sit-in where her father was arrested to her involvement in a cultlike Catholic youth group - with scenes that chronicle the eight-month adventure she and her husband had in her parents' household after a decade of living on their own. Lockwood details her education of a seminarian who is also living at the rectory, tries to explain Catholicism to her husband, who is mystified by its bloodthirstiness and arcane laws, and encounters a mysterious substance on a hotel bed with her mother.

Lockwood pivots from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the deeply serious, exploring issues of belief, belonging, and personhood. Priestdaddy is an entertaining, unforgettable portrait of a deeply odd religious upbringing and how one balances a hard-won identity with the weight of family and tradition.

©2017 Patricia Lockwood (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Patricia Lockwood's side-splitting Priestdaddy puts the poetry back in memoir. Her verbal verve creates a reading experience of effervescent joy, even as Lockwood takes you through some of her life's darker passages. Destined to be a classic, Priestdaddy is this year's must-read memoir." (Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club)
"Beautiful, funny and poignant. I wish I'd written this book." (Jenny Lawson, author of Furiously Happy)
" Priestdaddy is a revelatory debut, a meditation on family and art that finds poetry in the unlikeliest things, including poetry. Patricia Lockwood's prose is nothing short of ecstatic; every sentence hums with vibrant, anarchic delight, and her portrait of her epically eccentric family life is funny, warm, and stuffed to bursting with emotional insight. If I could write like this, I would." (Joss Whedon)

Featured Article: The top 100 memoirs of all time


All genres considered, the memoir is among the most difficult and complex for a writer to pull off. After all, giving voice to your own lived experience and recounting deeply painful or uncomfortable memories in a way that still engages and entertains is a remarkable feat. These autobiographies, often narrated by the authors themselves, shine with raw, unfiltered emotion sure to resonate with any listener. But don't just take our word for it—queue up any one of these listens, and you'll hear exactly what we mean.

Editor's Pick

"Shine on you crazy diamond"
"Priestdaddy is in my top five favorite books of all time, and probably best summed up in the words of Pink Floyd: "Shine on you crazy diamond." Thanks to a loophole, Lockwood’s dad is one of the only priests in the world whose wife and kids are sanctioned by the Catholic church. When he’s not in his vestments, his hobbies include watching action movies in his undies and playing hot licks on his electric guitars. This is the story of an unconventional family told in a singular, hilarious voice that will quietly surprise you when it starts digging into some of Catholicism’s darkest secrets."
Rachel S., Audible Editor

What listeners say about Priestdaddy

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration--read, don't listen

This is a great example of why authors should think long and hard before they narrate their own books. Few have the skill to do so. This narration emphasized the weak points of the writing and overwhelmed the good. The only word I can think of to describe the prose is "florid"...why use one metaphor when five in row might be better? (Because it makes you sound like the winner of the bad poetry/prose contest) Often the descriptions are hilariously overwrought. "The procession passed like a snake's lingerie". What? Still, there's a great story here, interesting characters, and thought provoking insights. It is truly unfortunate these are buried neck deep in downright annoying voices. All of the characters sound like they are coming out of the mouth of a middle school actress overplaying every line, trying to reach the back of the theatre. The mother's voice is a cross between the Wicked Witch and one of the Kardashian sisters. Priestdaddy's voice belongs in Wayne's World, a lunatic stoner. That guy is saying Mass? The main character's tone is so relentlessly snarky--insufferable,sneering adolescent--that you can't stand the girl. When the narrator occasionally dialed down her "performance" and spoke in a believable, authentic way, it was a beautiful calm in the middle of a storm of bad acting. This was a challenging book to narrate. The author wasn't up to the task and did her own writing a great disservice.

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38 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Holy Smutty Metaphors!

Lockwood is a new author to me. If I was hip, I'd have heard of Lockwood prior to buying this starred darling. I'd have known that the NY Times has crowned Lockwood the "smutty-metaphor queen." She has a big Twitter following and is the author of a book of poetry, "Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals." Lockwood is also a boundary pushing comic with an acerbic wit and a long windup into a delivery that packs a punch to your thinking process.

Lockwood as an author is a fantastic writer with a keen sense of observation. Her stories in this memoir are skillfully told with heart; her narrative smoothly slips from quirky hilarity into depths of sincere revelation. Daddy was a former Lutheran minister, married with children when he is compelled to convert to Catholicism. Granted a "dispensation" from Rome, he is "allowed to keep his wife....even allowed to keep his children, no matter how bad they might be." It is later revealed that his case was reviewed by Joseph Ratzinger, who we now know becomes Pope Benedict XVI. Living with a Catholic Priest, the family also shares the life of a priest and his flock from an intimate vantage point. Lockwood not only sees different lives and circumstances, she has a compassion that sees the perspectives.

The style reminded me of Mic Night at the local bookstore, where poets and storytellers get up and share their latest writings. The words weighted and paused for timing, the occasional interjection of a word or event meant to produce some level of shock in the listener, as you sip coffee or wine. You've no desire to attend the performance but you're dragged by a friend. It's good to get out, see friends, and somehow you end up enjoying the performances. That was this book for me. If I was more familiar with the work of Lockwood, I would have passed; NOT for any reason other than it is not a format or a genre I enjoy. Everything was top rate: the writing the content, the narration -- especially the narration by the author herself which adds another dimension -- it was not for me. I hope that my personal opinion doesn't dissuade anyone interested in this book.

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36 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Awful

The narrator/author’s habit of gleefully over-pronouncing all the sexual references and lewd words in an effort to sound edgy and provocative very quickly moved into nails/chalkboard-irritating territory. Abandoned book half-way in after realizing it was getting worse, not better.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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Boring

With all these great reviews, I expected a great book. But, it just dragged on.... I kept listening until chapter 7..........Then, skipped to chapter 14............still boring. Skipped some more. Tried a little of chapter 18, then a little of chapter 19. Well maybe it gets good at the end? Nope. Just a preacher's daughter, telling her boring life story. Save your ears!!!

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

It would be better to read the book, not to listen

What made the experience of listening to Priestdaddy the most enjoyable?

nothing--the listening experience was poor

What didn’t you like about Patricia Lockwood’s performance?

It's often not good to have authors read their own work. In this case a very good memoir was destroyed by not being able to be understood. The author's voice is dull, gravelly, monotonous, depressing, whispery, and drifts off at the end of the sentences. There were whole chapters I could not understand. I was thinking of returning it and getting the hard copy instead. It's impossible to focus on what she's saying.

Any additional comments?

Read the book, forget about the audible one.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Jesus would dig.

You will too. If you're : an artist / remain perplexed by the mysteries of the Catholic Church / have become indifferent to the mysteries of the Catholic Church / have ever found yourself drawn to contemplative life while simultaneously being repelled religious doctrine / or simply have dark humors coursing though your bod that need to be let- this book is for you. P.L. shares scenes from her life behind the doors of the rectory-- yet remains generous and funny.

And the narration? C'mon! Only SHE could convey her gentleness, anger, and distinctively weird comic timing so perfectly. I think her voice is pure chrism.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An Original Voice. An Original Thinker.

I want to be careful about the way in which I write about this book. Not because the subject matter is scandalous (it's not), but because, like all beautifully complex things, it'd be easy to mislabel or to put Lockwood's memoir in a box; to diminish its magnificence and, ultimately, the spell it cast over me. It deserves more than that. So, I'll say this: great writers are often lauded for having an original voice. Well, Lockwood has that and then some (including an amazing and amazingly absurd sense of humor). More importantly, she's an original thinker whose devotion to language and words and poetry - her primary trade - can be felt in every line, every turn of phrase, and every bit of confounding imagery that seems to reveal some hidden, intangible truth that normally exists just outside of fingertips' reach.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

This book is so bad, I couldn’t finish it! Just a bunch of whining and complaining about the Catholic Church in a most irr

This book is so bad, I couldn’t finish it! Just a bunch of whining and complaining about the Catholic Church in a most irreverent way. About a girl who liked to write about disgusting images while laughing at her father who somehow became a priest yet likes parading around the Home naked, likes guns and (HORRORS) supports the republicans! The author reads her book in a similar whining voice. Even the writing itself is boring. All sentences are the same length and emotion. Ugh!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Buy.This.Book!!

If you love bigger-than-life characters, read this book. If you love the Midwest, read this book. But most of all, if you love stunning and evocative combinations of words that create vivid settings, feelings and people, read this book. Patricia Lockwood's memoir blows the roof off the genre, super-charged by her ability to see in metaphor, to hear in color. She's a poet first, and she's wickedly funny as well - although in my opinion, her observations on women and Catholicism are even better then her hilarious captures of her strange family. The best book I've read in a long, long time.

Lockwood herself is the narrator, a fey voice for a fresh literary voice. Her performance is a superb match for her words.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Not great; likely just not my cup of tea.

I struggled to CH 3. Simply could not go on. The characters are boring and not likeable. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, so stumbled thru the 3rd chapter but that was all I could take.

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7 people found this helpful