The old­est daugh­ter of revered composer/​conductor Leonard Bern­stein offers a rare look at her father on the cen­ten­ni­al of his birth in a deeply inti­mate and broad­ly evoca­tive mem­oir. In Famous Father Girl, Bern­stein mines the emo­tion­al depths of her child­hood and invites us into her fam­i­ly’s pri­vate world. A fan­tas­tic set of char­ac­ters pop­u­lates the Bern­steins’ lives, includ­ing: the Kennedys, Mike Nichols, John Lennon, Richard Ave­don, Stephen Sond­heim, Jerome Rob­bins, and Bet­ty (Lau­ren) Bacall. An intox­i­cat­ing tale and an inti­mate med­i­ta­tion on a com­plex and some­times trou­bled man, the fam­i­ly he raised, and the music he com­posed that became the sound­track to their entwined lives. Deeply mov­ing and often hilar­i­ous, Bern­stein’s beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten mem­oir is a great Amer­i­can sto­ry about one of the great­est Amer­i­cans of the mod­ern age.