Honor Moore’s New Memoir Earns Praise, Raises Questions

Just over a month after its publication, poet Honor Moore’s new book, The Bishop’s Daughter: A Memoir, continues to earn headlines for its frank portrayal of her father, the late Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore. A civil rights leader, anti-war spokesman and advocate for the poor, Moore was a bishop in Washington during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency and later served for two decades as the bishop of New York. But during this time and throughout two marriages, he also led a secret life, including a 30-year relationship with another man.

“The connection between sexual identity and Judeo-Christian values is fraught with complexities, which are explored in detail in The Bishop’s Daughter,” writes Washington Blade book critic Kathi Wolfe in a recent review, which goes on to praise Moore’s “erudite and lyrical” writing and the memoir’s exploration of “the impact that homophobia had on a major 20th-century religious figure.”

As The Bishop’s Daughter speaks to the difficult intersection of religion and homosexuality in the 20th-century, so too does the book confront head-on the questions of risk and responsibility faced by the memoir as a genre in 21st-century America.

Honor Moore will speak about her new book, about her father’s struggles with his sexuality and about the challenges of each of her chosen genres — memoir and poetry — on the Fall for the Book Festival’s opening day, Sunday, September 21, at Old Town Hall in downtown Fairfax.