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Published May 2008
256 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing.
Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.
Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.
"With his unique blend of film history and personal memoir, Gilmour's latest offering will deservedly win him new American fans." - Publishers Weekly
"Perfectly balanced recollections, brimming with pathos leavened by sardonic humor. " - Kirkus Reviews
"I loved David Gilmour's sleek, potent little memoir." - Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls
"If all sons had dads like David Gilmour, then Oedipus would be a forgotten legend and Father's Day would be a worldwide film festival." - Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All
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