Available now from Atria Books
Erin Hosier’s coming-of-age was full of contradiction. Born into the turbulent 1970s, she was raised in rural Ohio by lapsed hippies who traded 1960s rock ‘n’ roll for 1950s-era Christian hymns. Don’t Let Me Down is about a brave girl trying to navigate family secrets and tragedies and escape from small-town small-mindedness. It is a searing and often funny exploration of how women first see themselves through the lens of a parent’s love, and of the ties that bind us to our childhood heroes, who ultimately lead us to ask that most profound of questions: Is love really all you need?
“Infused with levity…this incisive memoir explores the weighty complexities of father-daughter love.”
Publishers Weekly
"Hosier delivers a memoir that is less about chasing an identity and more about having one cast upon her and coming to terms with it. A vividly rhythmic chronicle of reconciliation couched with a 1960s rock-n-roll soundtrack."
Kirkus Reviews
“With a soundtrack provided by the Beatles, [Erin] Hosier's memoir considers her Ohio youth and New York City coming-of-age… Hosier writes most ecstatically about music and keeps readers turning pages with suspenseful foreshadowing and subtle cliff-hangers.”
Booklist
Erin Hosier’s remarkable coming-of-age story is tender, funny and resilient. Hosier doesn’t shy away from the complications and contradictions of love, sharing both the best and the worst of her volatile, vibrant father and detailing—in her singular and often hilarious voice—the difficulty of leaving childhood, home, and the people who loved you first."
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, The New York Times bestselling author of The Nest
"Clap your hands, rattle your jewelry, and twist and shout for Erin Hosier’s Don’t Let Me Down. If ‘true love shares a soundtrack,’ The Beatles gave an inspired daughter her only chance to connect with a complicated, troubled father. Hosier’s story is crammed with joy, heartbreak, transformation, and, at last, acceptance. Fierce, catchy, hilarious – like your favorite punk ’45 – this bird can sing. A glorious memoir.”
Brando Skyhorse, author of Take This Man
"In Erin Hosier's Don't Let Me Down, she shows us the slow and often imperceptible ways that a family becomes fractured, one secret at a time, until all is broken. Her memoir attempts to make that brokenness whole, an homage to her father, a testament to her brothers, to faith, and ultimately, to love. All of this is set within the structure of old Beatles tunes, one of the few shared pleasures that her family engaged in together. I read it in one sitting, the words playing like an LP in my brain."
Tanya Marquardt, author of Stray: Memoir of a Runaway
OTHERPPL with Brad Listi
Episode 588
Episode 1 with Barbara Feldon
In conversation with Molly Shannon at the Cuhahoga County Public Library
In conversation with Erin Hosier at the Cuyahoga County Public Library
Salon talks to literary agent and memoirist Erin Hosier about '90s B.S., "daddy issues" and the Beatles
Everyone has a story…not everyone can tell it. Roxanne says first-time author Erin Hosier “assuredly can tell her story and does so with the kind of wit, energy, warmth, and honesty that rivets you to the page.”
PW Talks With Erin Hosier
Episode 1 of Tell Me About Your Father, an interview with the star of Get Smart
In conversation with Helen Little
"Winner in the Amazon War" by Brooks Barnes, July 2, 2014
In conversation with Brad Listi
Audio trailer for Season 2
How The Beatles Helped a Father-Daughter Relationship Weather Abuse by Ariel Scotti
A conversation with Mark Sussman
“Schemel is not only an apt explainer of drug culture, she’s also a gifted humorist in that fine tradition of blackness that can really only emerge from the depths of such despairing pursuit of death by overdose. Her description of the nature of the highs is much clearer than any of Lou Reed’s compositions…Her memoir is proof that through a committed combination of clarity and wit, even the most enabled and damaged rockstar might get a second chance at both love and music. Courtney Love should probably read it.”
––Pop Matters
Co-author, Da Capo Press, 2017
Erin Hosier is the author of the memoir Don't Let Me Down (Atria, 2019), and the coauthor of Hit So Hard by Patty Schemel (Da Capo, 2017). She is the co-creator - with Elizabeth Thompson and Matthew Phillp - of the podcast TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FATHER. She has been a literary agent since 2001 (currently with Dunow Carlson & Lerner), and was an original co-host of the Literary Death Match. As an agent, she primarily works with authors of nonfiction and has a special interest in popular culture, music biography, humor, women's history (and untold stories of all kinds). In general, novels with happy endings put her in a bad mood. She lives in Cleveland.
CONTACT
Publicity: Milena Brown • milena.brown@simonandschuster.com
Literary agent: Betsy Lerner • Dunow Carlson & Lerner
Film/tv: Brooke Ehrlich • CAA