Episode 41: Ada Calhoun and Frank O'Hara, Her Father and the New York School of Poets and Painters
In her latest book, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me (Grove Atlantic, 2022), Ada Calhoun traces her fraught relationship with her father, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl, and their shared obsession with the poet Frank O’Hara. The book features exclusive material from archival recordings of literary and art world legends, living and dead. Having stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father had conducted for his never-completed biography of O’Hara, Calhoun set out to finish the book he had started 40 years earlier. As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, she thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more difficult it became: Calhoun had to confront not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own. The result is a kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with the moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun has offered a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.