The Time Mom Met Hitler, Frost Came to Dinner, and I Heard the Greatest Story Ever Told: A Memoir by Dikkon Eberhardt

Synopsis: He was predestined for literary greatness. If only his father hadn’t used up all the words.

As the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet laureate Richard Eberhart, Dikkon Eberhart grew up surrounded by literary giants. Frequent dinner guests included, among others, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath. To the world, they were literary icons. To Dikkon, they were friends who read him bedtime stories, gave him advice, and, on one particularly memorable occasion, helped him with his English homework.

Anxious to escape his famous father's shadow, Dikkon struggled for decades to forge an identity of his own, first in writing and then on the stage, before inadvertently stumbling upon the answer he'd been looking for all along--in the most unlikely of places.Filled with unforgettable stories featuring some of the most colorful characters of the Beat Generation, "The Time Mom Met Hitler, Frost Came to Dinner, and I Heard the Greatest Story Ever Told" is a winsome coming-of-age story about one man's search for identity and what happens when he finally finds it.

My review: I loved reading about the author's interactions with various poets who have long been special to me. As a poet myself, I grew up reading a lot of their work, and being inspired by them. To get to see a little more "human" side of them was fascinating. 

It was sad to read how Dikkon, surrounded by all these famous people, as well as his own family, often felt lonely as a child--almost unseen by his parents at times. Some of those stories definitely tug at the heartstrings.

I could also relate to his spiritual search, as I spent many years of my life on that same type of journey. Reading his joy and excitement at finding his answers was one of the high points of the book.

The title and cover of the book were what originally enticed me, but the story inside is what drew me in and kept me reading to the end. If you're a fan of poets and the literary world, this is the book for you.

My rating: Five stars