REVIEW: Executrix by Brittany Perham

Reviewed by August Owens Grimm

Dead Dad memoirs frequently work towards some kind of peace with the memory of the author’s toxic or absent father. Brittany Perham’s Executrix (University of Georgia Press; Sept. 2026), selected as the winner of The Sue Silverman Nonfiction Prize by Cheryl Strayed, refreshingly resists such post-death reconciliation. She tempers our expectations early on in “Before We Begin”: “I have to tell you not much changes between the beginning and the end. I don’t know and then I don’t know.”

I appreciate the up-frontness. Saying she doesn’t know is a welcome shift from the expectation, pressure, cliche, that memoir authors need to be able to fix their problem, finish their grieving by the last page. It takes a lot of pressure off as long as the writing is compelling, which it is here.

I wanted to review this book because of my own Dead Dad story. The similarities between our Dead Dad stories are so uncanny that it made me consider abandoning this review.

Perham drops us right into a Boston ICU where her father, Robert, is dying or dead or both. You see, he’s brain dead. But his body, overwhelmed by alcoholic cirrhosis, is technically alive courtesy of a ventilator and other life-extending equipment. Perham does a fantastic job of letting us in on all the thoughts racing through her mind. Some of the lines burst out in short sentences or small paragraphs. Words, phrases repeat. This structure mirrors what it’s like to have many conflicting emotions about the death of a chaotic father. Making an already upsetting situation more complicated is that Perham has been estranged from Robert for the ten years before her brother summoned her back to Boston from San Francisco. The siblings have decided to take him off those machines, let him fully die.

The word abuse appears nowhere in the book (I did a word search in my PDF copy just to make sure). Early on, when giving a list of what to expect and not to expect from the book, she declares, “I have to tell you there was no trauma, don’t even say that word.” However, the only reason Perham declares “no trauma” is because, as she tells her therapist, “I hate the word ‘trauma’…Everyone’s using it.”

Her father stalked, harassed, and threatened her.

He called her nonstop until she cut off contact.

Her therapist calls this trauma.

Her therapist says Robert is a sociopath. Or was one, since he is dead by the time this conversation happens in the book.

Her therapist suggests Perham has PTSD from the abuse her father inflicted. PTSD causes unwanted, uncontrollable repetitions of traumatic events. This is effectively visualized, made integral to the story and part of the book through word, information, and/or sentence repetition, such as when “your father is a sociopath” appears throughout the “One Sociopath One Hypochondriac and the Word Trauma” chapter. Towards the end of the session (or at least the end of the scene about the session), her therapist tells her she doesn’t have to use the word if she doesn’t want to. I totally agree with this. Except, saying at the beginning there was no trauma only to find out later that there was, makes me feel confused.

Confused about how to feel about it. Are the seams of the book showing too much? Or is showing the seams the point? Perham does call attention to Executrix as a constructed thing. Discussing how she knew on her overnight flight that she would write her father’s “death story.” When initially reading the book, I felt the contradiction broke the reader/writer contract. Now, I wonder if that’s the point.

***

It’s creepy how similar my Dead Dad story is to Perham’s.

Our fathers were born in the same year and month, but mine died five years before Robert did.

My dad was an alcoholic. Capable of awful things while drunk and sober.

He went into a coma. He needed a ventilator to breathe, to be alive or kind of alive. Not dead. Not yet.

My sister called for me to return to Cleveland from Chicago. I agreed to fly over the next morning.

I had gone no contact with my dad. Seeing him for the first time in four years as he lay in the ICU comatose. We decided to take him off the ventilator and that was that.

Like Perham, I took notes because I had also decided during my plane ride to write about my father’s death. Unlike Perham, I threw my notes away at the hospital because I felt guilty. I regret not keeping them.

***

As we learn throughout the book, Perham’s father, like many trauma-inflicting parents, wasn’t always awful. Perham perfectly visualizes this by imagining two versions of her father’s ghost, Good Dad-in-the-Sky and Bad Dead Dad. A quick note: I’m not sure why she doesn’t call the good version of her dad, Good Dead Dad. Maybe I like the symmetry of that better since it would truly present them in opposition to each other. Regardless, Perham’s choice is effective, the split between the two makes him a kind of Jekyll and Hyde figure or figures. Based on my experience, however, both did live within him, alcohol letting Bad Dad be more in control. Maybe I’m projecting here.

The Dads can talk to her, and she can talk with them, but no one else sees them. For a moment she considers telling her brother about the Dead Dads then decides against it. Good Dad-in-the-Sky is the fatter, more loving version of him. I appreciate that she equates fatness with goodness since that is rarely the case in books or anywhere. This is the dad she remembers from when she was a kid. Before his alcoholism began to wreak havoc on him and their family. Bad Dead Dad looks like he did in his ICU bed, sickly thin, skin grayish, and he is mean: “‘I was dying,’ he says. ‘Where were you?’” Perham doesn’t call them ghosts or any paranormal word, instead insisting they are just her imagination. Based on my personal definition of ghosts, her dad is haunting her even if his presence or their presence is only in her head.

Robert commits one last chaotic act. Before he died, he made Perham the executrix of his estate. Hence, the title of the book. Her brother, the one closest to him emotionally and physically, had been the executor. While Perham does carry out her duties, trying to sell her father’s house and its contents, the final results of her efforts are largely left unresolved. As are her feelings about Robert, which are far too intricate to resolve. And as my therapist tells me, the emotions around the relationship with my Dead Dad may never be resolved and perhaps this will be the case for Perham. Unlike me, she banishes the ghostly representations of her father, Good Dad and Bad Dad. There is no big catharsis carried out. They simply disappear when she decides it is time for them to go. Maybe I’m a little jealous she’s able to make this happen.

The final pages take us back to the beginning or what could have maybe been the opening of the book, Perham waiting for the call from her brother to know if Robert is dead or dying or both as she walks through the botanical gardens with her love in San Francisco. I really liked, appreciated, the care she and her love show towards each other. It’s a great contrast to her state of mind once she gets to her father’s bedside. Her love is supportive, caring. You could look at this ending as a symbol of Perham being at peace with the events that come before.

You could also consider that ending here shows the cycle of PTSD. Once you get to the end, you start over. I’m fond of saying a haunting is a repetition. If we consider this second ending where metaphorically Perham is going to go through the events of the book again, needing her Dead Dads again, pushing herself to finish writing this book by the time she turns forty. This book is a haunted one. A designation I imagine she might scoff at since she resists categorizing her book throughout the story. But that’s okay.

***

I almost abandoned this review because working on it caused me to have a very public panic attack in my local coffee shop. Why did this happen during the writing, not the reading? I’ll chalk that up to the mysteries of the brain. I considered stopping, telling the editor I couldn’t do it. If you’re reading this, it means that I, like Perham, kept going.