Ghostbuster's Daughter

March 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.