Priestdaddy

There seems to be a trend in books lately: the memoir about a life where nothing amazing happens. I don't know if it started with Karl Ove Knausgard, who managed to write six long books about his fairly ordinary life, but the trend is not either good or bad, but depends on how good the writer is. Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood, who somehow has managed to gain some fame as a poet, has written a hysterically funny book about growing up the daughter of a priest.

Yes, that's right. "Catholic priests, by definition, aren’t allowed to be married, but my father snuck past the definition while the dictionary was sleeping and was somehow ordained one anyway. An exception to the rules, before I even understood what the rules were. A human loophole, and I slipped through him into the world." Her father, she describes, was once a nonbelieving hippie, but became converted while watching The Exorcist while serving on a submarine. He became a Lutheran minister, but then switched over to Catholicism. Late in the book, Lockwood describes how he showed her and her sister the movie when they were tots, telling them it was a true story and it might someday happen to them.

Greg Lockwood is a larger than life character, and I've read some comments that suggest Lockwood is making some of the things up. I have no idea, but he's a great character, a man who walks around the house in only his boxers ("There are some men who must strip straight down to their personality as soon as they walk through the door of their castle, and my father is one of them. I have almost no memories of him wearing pants, and I have a lot of memories of him sitting me down for serious talks while leaning forward on his bare haunches. He just never wore pants on principle"), plays classic rock on an electric guitar ("It sounds like a whole band dying in a plane crash in the year 1972. He plays the guitar like he’s trying to take off women’s jeans, or like he’s standing nude in the middle of a thunderstorm and calling down lightning to strike his pecs"), and watches action films while yelling encouraging commentary.

Her mother is also a pip. "If my father is best described in terms of his nudity, my mother is best described in terms of her Danger Face, which is organized around the information that somewhere in America, a house is on fire. There are human Lassies among us, who are more alert to disaster, who feel a little ding! go off in their heads whenever a child falls into a well. She is one of them, and all humankind is her Timmy." Lockwood, when she moves to a new house, recalls, "You want my mother on your side during a post-apocalyptic war for resources, and you also want her with you when you move. She acquires superhuman strength during these times, like the women who lift cars off babies. In a way, that’s what she’s doing, except the car also contains all the literature the baby has ever owned, the contents of its closets, and all its freaky baby makeup."

The book is told non-chronologically, but centers around how she and her husband, Jason, after running off together to get married after meeting on the Internet when she was only nineteen, come back to live in the asylum of her parents. At times it sounds awful, but she seems amused by much of it. When she does move out, it's something of an escape, but also a loss of material. If she writes future memoirs, she may have to incorporate more characters.

Lockwood has an interesting view on a variety of subjects, with sterling metaphors and similes. On motels: "I had always thought the words “hotel” and “motel” were synonyms, but as soon as I stepped across the threshold, I understood that a motel was grosser. It looked like the place where Smokey the Bear went to cheat on his wife." On writing a poem: "Usually publishing a poem is like puking in space, or growing an adolescent mustache—no one really notices, and it might be better that way." On mayonnaise's place in religion: "I also recall consuming an enormous quantity and variety of mayonnaise salads, which Lutherans loved and excelled at making. If Jesus himself appeared in their midst and said, “Eat my body,” they would first slather mayonnaise all over him." And her bad singing voice: "Let me be honest: my voice sounded like the final cry of someone killed by a falling piano."

There are some more serious contemplations, but reading this book is like talking with somebody really cool and funny and when they get all serious you just want them to go back being funny. I loved the humor in this book, but it's not particularly profound. I think profundity is best found in her poems.