Welcome to Gap Fest Reads, September edition, I'm John Dickerson.

On this Gap Fest Reads, I talk with Ada Calhoun, a journalist and nonfiction author who

set out to finish a biography of her favorite poet, Franco Hara.

At Calhoun's father, the New Yorker, Art Critic, Peter Sheldall started decades ago.

Instead, she wrote almost a poet, Franco Hara, my father and me, which is both an exploration

of the O'Hara she finds in taped interviews that her father did and a reflection on her own

fraught history with her celebrated father and the New York art world she grew up in and

the one she learns about on those tapes.

The book is out now from Grove Atlantic Press.

Here's our conversation.

So, Ada, we're going to start with basic questions.

Who was Franco Hara?

Franco Hara was a beloved mid-century poet.

He was very much a part of the scene of painters and poets in downtown New York in 1950s, 1960s.

He was a central part of that scene, but then he also was untimely ripped from this earth.

Tell us a little bit about his death.

He died at 40 on Fire Island in a freak accident.

He was hit by a dune buggy in the middle of the night and, of course, Fire Island is

known for having no cars.

So I think he is maybe the only vehicular death recorded over there.

And now tell us who your father is.

His name is Peter Scheldall.

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