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Ghostbuster's Daughter: Life with My Dad, Harold Ramis

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Ghostbuster's Daughter: Life with My Dad, Harold Ramis

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Overview

From the daughter of comedy legend Harold Ramis (and featuring a Foreword by Seth Rogen) comes a hilarious and heartwarming account of his life, work, and legacy.

Most of us know Harold Ramis as the writer, director, and actor who brought warmth and humor to the big screen in classics like Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, National Lampoon's Vacation, and Groundhog Day. To his daughter, Violet, he was best known as an amazing father, confidant, and friend. In Ghostbuster's Daughter, Violet reflects on the life and legacy of her father, providing readers with an extraordinarily candid and insightful look into the man who helped shape modern American comedy.

Funny, endearing, and vulnerable, Ghostbuster's Daughter takes readers into the private life of the American comedy icon, from his humble roots in Chicago and ascension into Hollywood stardom to his personal philosophies on life, love, and filmmaking. While the book offers a comprehensive history of her father's career, Ghostbuster's Daughter also provides a profound homage to their special father-daughter relationship. Violet weaves anecdotes about her father's unique and devoted parenting style among stories of her own unconventional upbringing, creating a vivid and dynamic portrait of the man behind the movies. A distinctly offbeat memoir as well as a charming family story for the ages, Ghostbuster's Daughter is an intimate look at one of America's preeminent comedy filmmakers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735217874
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Violet Ramis Stiel is the eldest child of beloved comedy legend Harold Ramis (Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day). Formerly a teacher and social worker, Violet is now a full-time writer and disgruntled homemaker. She lives in New York City with her husband and their (blended) six children.

Read an Excerpt

Young Love
(Continues…)

Excerpted from "Ghostbuster's Daughter"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Violet Ramis Stiel.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

June’s Best Biographies and Memoirs

03/12/2018
Stiel debuts with a family memoir that offers an intimate view of her father: writer, actor, and director Harold Ramis (Animal House, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day), who died in 2014. Short, digestible chapters describe Ramis’s early life and career, including editing jokes at Playboy, collaborating on National Lampoon Radio Hour, and his subsequent foray into filmmaking. A thorough exploration of family dynamics runs parallel to Ramis’s professional arc, showcasing a more intimate side of the comedic legend largely unknown to admirers of his work. Ramis adopted a loose, relaxed approach to parenting, and Stiel writes that he was unabashed about his recreational drug use and had an open marriage arrangement with Stiel’s mother. Stiel recalls the warmth and compassion that radiated from Ramis as he nurtured his young daughter and helped shape her personality and worldview. Accounts of Ramis’s films are interspersed among these heartfelt anecdotes and hilarious asides, and Stiel often includes personal photos on location and unique insight into her father’s state of mind (he was disappointed with his ending of National Lampoon’s Vacation, and often apologized to the actors involved). In a work sure to satisfy fans of Ramis, Stiel renders a three-dimensional image of her father as an emblematic figure in comedy. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Stiel debuts with a family memoir that offers an intimate view of her father: writer, actor, and director Harold Ramis… a work sure to satisfy fans of Ramis, Stiel renders a three-dimensional image of her father as an emblematic figure in comedy.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Violet Ramis Stiel’s memoir of her famous dad, Harold Ramis, isn’t an exposé. It’s a Father’s Day card.”
—The New York Daily News

“An often-charming, complicated and sometimes harrowing memoir.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A lovingly remembered memoir and a frequently laugh-out-loud-funny, often tear-inducing book about a man who brought us all to tears with the sheer joy of his films.”
—Booklist

"An honest book and deeply personal.”
—The Chicago Tribune

“This book perfectly captures why so many of us love Harold Ramis and spent our lives trying to be Harold Ramis. Violet’s intimate biography of her relationship with her father is the book I dreamed someone would write about this special man.”
—Judd Apatow

“Harold Ramis was one of the most important innovators of modern comedy, and Violet Ramis Stiel brings her father to life in such heartfelt and wonderful detail that you can practically feel him leap off every page. This sweet and fascinating book is a must read for anybody who was ever touched by Harold’s legacy of work, genius and laughter.”
—Paul Feig

“Violet Ramis is candid about her father’s faults and missteps, as well as her own, but Ghostbuster’s Daughter is no Mommy Dearest; by writing honestly about herself and her father, Harold Ramis, she shows how he truly earned the title of 'Daddy Greatest,' despite (and sometimes because of) his flaws. You may begin this book with an appreciation for Harold Ramis’s work, but you’ll finish it with a deeper appreciation for his heart and soul.”
—Sarah Bennett, national bestselling author of F*CK FEELINGS, F*CK LOVE, and LIFE SUCKS

From the Publisher

2018-02-20
The daughter of legendary filmmaker Harold Ramis (1944-2014) chronicles her wild Hollywood upbringing and close relationship with her father.Even in the pre-internet era, having a permissive and free-wheeling celebrity parent could be challenging, as Stiel proves in detailing her youthful rebelliousness, drug use, and promiscuity. There were, however, obvious advantages as well, ranging from the opportunity to hang out with legendary actors in exotic locations to financial support that enabled a directionless young woman to eventually find her way in the world. By turns frank and fawning when assessing her extended family's ability to navigate the perils of public life, the author's affection for her dad, a beloved figure in Hollywood, dominates the narrative. She joins the #metoo movement by (gently) chiding her father for some of the more questionable scenes in his movies and, more movingly, by sharing her own story of abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend at age 9. While there are some juicy nuggets of gossip sprinkled throughout—the most shocking being the revelation that Harold Ramis was the father of Clueless director Amy Heckerling's daughter—fans looking for new insight into the two-decade rift between Ramis and Bill Murray that followed the completion of Groundhog Day or behind-the-scenes Ghostbusters secrets will be disappointed. The book closes with a sobering account of the director's long bout with vasculitis, an ordeal his wife kept under wraps in hopes of preserving his ability to return to work if he recovered, depriving his family of support from the entertainment community when they needed it most. After his death, Ramis received an outpouring of love, though the author struggled to come to grips with his passing even as she focused on raising her own children.A touching homage to a beloved father and a sufficiently amusing tribute to a comedy legend, but it's less compelling as a memoir.

Kirkus Reviews