Priestdaddy: A Memoir

by Patricia Lockwood

The story of any courtship is one of ephemera, dead vehicles, outdated technology.

“WATCH YOUR FORM!” my father shouted from the sidelines, and then buried himself again in a thick Tom Clancy novel about men being nervous on a submarine. He adjusted his sunglasses and smacked his lips with satisfaction. The men were SO nervous.

I had forgotten how the fall sharpens pencils, gray and colored ones. I had forgotten that when you pay attention to the seasons, you are returned to school and all its feelings, the freedom of three o’clock and the nameless dread of Sunday night, when the sky looms over you like the deadline of some paper you haven’t even started.