Her Father: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Bill Henderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1995

A story about Bill Henderson, the founder and publisher of the Pushcart Press, from his freewheeling life as a struggling small publisher and a man-about-New-York-City then meeting his wife, setting up house, the ambivalence about having a child and finally the hilarious misadventures leading to the birth of his daughter. "Her Father" is a highly personal yet universally familiar account of one man’s passage to adulthood and concurrent spiritual reawakening.

"A perversely heartening and optimistic book because it proves that even the most infuriating and self-destructive of men can be dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood under the instruction of a brave woman and a child who will get herself born no matter what. I believe everything Bill Henderson says, especially the tales he tells on himself because, as some have said about the Bible, would anyone have made up stories as full of folly and hunger and humbled power as these if they hadn’t been true," Rosellen Brown.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"What's it like to be you, Dad?" Henderson's young daughter, Holly, asks him, and this memoir is his answer. The maverick editor and publisher of Pushcart Press writes simply and frankly about his chaotic life before he became a father, picturing his Philadelphia youth in a very religious household, the details of his sexual exploits as a young man of the '70s, the ups and downs of his relationship with Annie, who became his wife, the difficulties surrounding Holly's conception and birth, his return to religion and his firm belief that "Love is God." It was Henderson's hope that "if I told the truth from my heart it would reach others." While "truth" is more complex than the surfaces of the events he relates?which he does not probe deeply?what does reach others is a portrait of a doting parent and a warm, lively man.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Speaking with candor about his youthful adventures, Henderson, founder of the Pushcart Press and author of The Kid That Could (Pushcart Pr., 1990), spares no detail in his account of living in New York City during the 1970s. He describes an evening of sexual adventure at Plato's Retreat that seems particularly decadent in the days of AIDS awareness. Eventually, though, Henderson settles down, marries, and becomes a father while in his forties. He describes his wife's pregnancy and the much anticipated birth of his daughter with a suspense and humor that exhibit his storytelling art at its height. The subsequent glimpses of his life are filled with all the wonder and excitement a growing child can bring to a parent. The warmth and sensitivity Henderson shows toward his wife and daughter along with his growing self-awareness rescue the book from being just another macho record of sexual conquests. For public libraries.?Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571198724
• ISBN-13: 978-0571198726
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,174,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bill Henderson has been publishing books and newsletters about cancer treatment and helping people deal with cancer since 1998. In this, his third book, Bill offers a very specific and detailed regimen for healing any cancer. He is recognized in 58 countries as an authority on this subject.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read, November 22, 1999

By 

Cactus Ed (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Her Father: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Bill Henderson writes so well about his life, his belated "coming of age" into this thing called Adulthood. His writing comes across as so completely honest that I felt I was at a bar with my good friend Bill Henderson, listening to his struggles with love and religion and dead and dying parents and drinking and trying to conceive a child...and trying always to live authentically. Though this may seem an obscure memoir, Bill Henderson is in fact a highly regarded independent publisher ( Pushcart ) and the "boss" of the infamous Lead Pencil Club, of which I am a member ( irony abounds, God Knows! ). Bill edited a book called The Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club; I liked that so much that I searched Amazon for anything else he'd done - that's how I found the wonderful Her Father.

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, December 16, 2003

By 

foundpoem - See all my reviews

This review is from: Her Father: A Memoir (Paperback)

I wanted, very much, to get to know Bill Henderson, the man behind The Pushcart Prize and Pushcart Press. He has no web site and he's criticized by the publishing industry as someone who came from nowhere and awards prizes that are, for no reason, revered.

So, who is he? How did he come to be who he is?

Of his few memoirs published, each by his own press, this seemed most informative. But, it wasn't informative enough. It begins as a good memoir - a bit about his feelings, his past, his promise to his mother, which, as other reviews point out is the thesis of the book.

From that point on, this promise--to have a child--takes over, to the point of the book becoming not a memoir but a letter to his daughter, or, a year in the life of. He could have, perhaps, been helped by an objective editor (i.e., not the mom). Nine months of pregnancy does not half a memoir make.

I read the book and I know Mr. Henderson a bit better, which is nice. I wanted more than a bit, and I wanted more than a story of pregnancy.

His personal story, and seemingly the book, ends with him as a poor self-publisher. This begs the comment: No he isn't. He publishes one of the most sought-after prizes for small presses; he makes careers; his Pushcart Prize is an It Prize. He can't possibly be a poor guy in a shack.

When the story of his career stopped and the one of his fatherhood began, he forgot to mention what happened next in the rest of his life. I want to know what happened next, and I don't really want to read all four of his memoirs to find out.

Ultimately, I think that had he not been the publisher, this book would not have been published. As the title implies, it's about being "her father"; it's a note to his daughter. And, it's two books in one - the first half, a memoir; the second half, a pregnancy and child.