Customer Reviews

The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir

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A memoir that is religious and sexual at its core -- this is the story that Honor Moore tells of her father, herself and their places in their extended families. A WWII veteran who was convinced that his near-death experiences pointed him into religious life of the Episcopal Church, he rose to Bishop of Diocese of New York. But he was tormented by his double life as a bisexual -- and in a generation, his own daughter would struggle with her own sexuality, starting with an abortion and a non-coversation with the possible father. The book is a brief bio of her father, then of herself, and then of truths coming home to the light of day. A wonderful and honest book for the reader to consume.

The author, Honor Moore, was born to very wealthy parents. It is no exaggeration to say that she was born with the proverbial "gold spoon in her mouth". Her father, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Paul Moore, the famous Episcopal Bishop who lived in New York, was a descendant of an aristocratic family, and her mother, Jenny McKean was an heir to a fabulous and old fortune. To quote the author:

"My father was born in 1919, the beneficiary of vast wealth. He was a grandson of William H. Moore, Palm Beach, where they lived in an Addison Mizner villa, Lake Worth on one side of the house and a wide ocean beach on the other." In addition, he owned a house in the Adirondacks by the lake, an enormous apartment in Manhattan on the eighteenth floor of a building on Fifth Avenue, with a view of Central Park, and a house in Connecticut by the Long Island Sound also.

Even though the book is titled "The Bishop's Daughter", it has a great deal of information, both pleasant and unpleasant, about the famous Episcopalian Bishop. The Bishop was wealthy, but he wasn't a happy man. His first wife considered him "the most unhappy man she had ever known." He was married twice, and he had nine children. And he had a lover named Andrew Verver also. Their secret romance lasted over 28 years. With a great deal of courage, compassion, affection, and understanding, the author describes the relationship and romance the Bishop had with Andrew. I was quite moved when I read the passages that desribed in detail their romance. After reading those passages I thought Andrew is a friendly, decent and lovable man.

The author was estranged from her father. But she reconciled after the Bishop became ill and he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, melanoma of the brain. After the Bishop's death, she met Andrew in New York to try to understand and also to get more information about their love affair, and then they drove to Connecticut to visit the Bishop's grave.

This is a sad and very moving autobiography, written in simple, clear and elegant prose: "He had been a fixture there for years, a giant of a man with white hair, tilting from side to side (he had a hip problem), often walking Percy, his tiny Yorkshire terrier. There was a café on the corner, and, directly across the street, a one-story building with tall windows and what looked from the outside like a vaulted ceiling. It housed a hairdresser who seemed always to have the most beautiful and exotic flowers in his salon." Reading this book will touch your heart.

Of the summer's two "gay Episcopal" memoirs -- the other being Gene Robinson's book -- I found Honor Moore's by far the more substantive. Nearly all of us wrestle with our parents, and the more charismatic and larger than life they are, the more likely it is that this wrestling will leave us wounded. Honor Moore courageously shows us her wounds (and her wonder) as well as her father's complexity and her mother's humanity.

Moore opens a window onto the significant social pressures Episcopal clergy once faced to sunder their sexuality from their spirituality -- conservative evangelicals take note -- and this alone makes her book a valuable contribution to church social history.

The real beauty of the book, however, lies in its depiction of two parents and their eldest daughter trying to live their lives as authentically as they can. This is difficult in any era, no matter what the current social prejudices, and if none of the three quite succeeds as much as we would have wished, their journeys are no less moving.

Honor Moore could teach Freud himself a few things about family relationships. The first of nine children of a marriage between a privileged Episcopal priest and his well-born wife, Honor from an early age longed to get inside the dynamics of her parents' life together.

Coming as it does while the Anglican (Episcopal to Americans) church is in the midst of a controversy about the roles of gays and lesbians, her memoir is especially instructive about the way sex and gender play out in this ecclesiastical world. It is also a cautionary tale about the ripple effect of dishonesty nurtured in closeted homosexuality.

What makes this memoir so compelling, however, is not that Honor Moore outs her iconic father, Paul, the bishop, but her gentle but relentless search for the factual and emotional truth about her parents' multiple liaisons and her own. Meticulously, she recounts her childhood awe of her father's spiritual identity, separate from the one he assumed around the rectory. In his clerical garb, he was apart, but even more than she knew was hidden.

The years the family spent in Jersey City during the late fifties and early sixties in a ministry that involved all its members formed her character and created the image of her father as a dashing activist priest aware of the roots of racism and poverty. She speaks dispassionately of the huge family fortune that provided some respite for the family and enabled her father's ministry. He called it his cross of gold. She would say, I think, that the cross he and his family bore was of a different nature.

Aside from its political implications, this memoir is a deeply personal exploration of Christianity and the erotic and worth reading no matter what your sexual or religious orientation.

I happen to have had the good fortune of meeting Ms. Moore in school, many years ago and we have remained in touch sporadically over the years. Can I be objective because of my relationship? Yes and no...I have other friends who have written books and I am predisposed to like them, that said, some I like better then others, reporting to you that I love Honor and I truly loved her latest book. Found it very moving and respectful, not a "Mommy Dearest", loose liped memoir at all. Wonderfully written, evocative, funny and sad and above all written with a full heart. One of my favorite reads in the last few years. Bless her and Mom and Pops too.

Honor Moore deeply engages her memories and the documents of her family. She uses photographs, letters, journals and newspaper reports to inform and challenge her original memories as well as plenty of psychotherapy to inform her insights. Her book reflects an adult making sense of her family and herself ... within the context of wealth, privilege and many well-known names.

Most compelling of all is the cost of her parents dishonesty about affairs, sexual orientation and affections. As another reviewer notes, this book is a carefully reflected upon object lesson for all people about the damage done by denials and lies.

At the same time, it chronicles the opening up of new opportunities ... such as Bishop Moore's ordaining the first out lesbian, and other changes in the Episcopal Church. The overall message is one of hope and faith and love (as in the best kind of charity.)

Read it!

honor moore is a gorgeous writer--and this is her greatest work to date. a really important, moving book.

In spite of one review that is totally inexplicable to me, I can't begin to express how beautifully wrought this memoir is, how honest and how moving. And--how courageous. I had the privilege of meeting Honor Moore last Sunday and it has added to the richness of the book, as how could it not? I am deeply impressed with this book and to be honest, it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to reminiscences (not the best choice of word) about one's family, one's place in it and what it means to take the risk and tell the story as one sees it, meanwhile honoring the Rashomon aspect of most anything in life that not everyone will necessarily perceive a life the same way. Brava, Ms. Moore! Many times over.

Honor Moore did a stupendous, much needed service for her father, Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., herself, her siblings, and all of those in our society who remain illiterate and prejudiced about any and all sexual orientations. Given the ugly consequences of ignorance and understanding regarding homosexuality, it is no wonder that Bishop Moore, like so many others, had to hide such a significant part of himself, his sexuality, or a vital part of it, in order to perform the life service that was another grand and vibrant part of himself, his church service for the good of the millions whose minds and lives he influenced for good. We must remember that homosexuals are usually given life by heterosexuals who in so many sad cases are then ready to throw those children away. We must remember that the caste system created by heterosexuals that forces bisexuals and homosexuals to live in suffocating, locked closets is the evil that promotes what appears to be the deceit or duplicity that bisexuals and homosexuals must then practice in order to also live seemingly freely, seemingly fully. Ignorance, fear, and phobia are the components of prejudice, all prejudice. We have a desperate need to enlighten the ignorance with understanding, replace the fear with acceptance and love. Only then will we see the dissolution of phobia finally evolve. And heterosexuals must pay attention to bisexuals and homosexuals to gain a wider understanding of sexuality. The opposite side of that coin is that bisexuals and homosexuals must be ready and willing to help heterosexuals learn. That will require bi-directional openness. Any of Honor Moore's siblings and any others who think she betrayed her father need to carefully study her memoirs to see how she truly provided Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., the "wings of a dove" he so painfully sought all his life. Now her memories and our knowledge of that great man, that man of clay, can allow him to function more freely and fully as shepherd of an even larger flock. Now Paul Moore, Jr., can truly "fly away and rest,"

Gilbert Cantlin

My reason for reading The Bishop's Daughter was to learn more of Bishop Moore's transformation from a biblical preacher to political activist. I got more than I wanted or asked for. I recommend this book to those who knew Bishop Moore and have similar questions and to those who wonder why the Episcopal Church is self-destructing. Honor Moore answers my question early in her book when on page 158, she writes, "[M]y father, to gain trust, purposely kept his sermons apolitical those first Indianapolis years--pastoral and close to scripture." Dean Moore was purposely concealing his political agenda, and much more, while I knew and respected him as my parish priest at Christ Church Cathedral while I attended medical school in Indianapolis. Once he became Suffragan Bishop of Washington, he seemed to become a different person, a political man, championing many political causes, some quite noble and some that would contribute to the current decline of the Episcopal Church. Honor also goes to great length to tell us about her father's and her own slavery to their sexual impulses. It is hard to imagine a more dysfunctional family, her father having sex with both women and men, in and out of his two marriages, and Honor vacillating between male and female lovers and seeking psychiatric help repeatedly as her numerous liaisons break up. Gay activists in the Episcopal Church claim that their cause is about long-term loving monogamous relationships. The insight, if it is true, that Honor gives us about Bishop Moore, one of their champions, shows quite a different picture. He called his uncontrolled sexual obsessions "an addiction" on page 290, and it reminds me of the Roman Catholic Church's scandal over homosexual priests' abuse of adolescent boys and young men. Honor writes (page 339), "I am grateful to have had a father who lived his passion." This in spite of the fact "his passion" wrecked two marriages, made him "the most unhappy man" her mother had ever known (page 285), violated his marriage vows, made a mockery of his ordination vows, and contributed to the ongoing decline of his church. Yet these revelations have helped me by leading me from my initial disappointment in him and some anger forty years ago through disgust eventually to sadness and even anguish for this tortured man, who, in spite of his many gifts and talents, tried futilely to justify his sexual addiction as part of his particular spirituality.