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Fathers and Daughters: Portraits in Fiction
Gathers twenty-three stories by Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Adams, William Trevor, Muriel Spark, E.M. Forster, and Max Apple
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 29, 2017
A wonderfully disparate group of writers, with an equally wide-ranging view of the special, difficult connection between men and their daughters. The authors include famous names like F. Scott Fitzgerald and John O'Hara, Alice Adams and John Updike, along with a host of storytellers I do not know - R.K. Narayan and Peter Taylor and others. Perhaps unsurprisingly, mostly men.
Most are true short stories - single days or incidents, moments when a father find himself utterly aware of the delicate strings connecting his daughter to himself. Some find their offspring mysterious, remote; they fear as much as love them. Other try, sometimes in vain, to understand the girls they have brought into the world, who are growing into their own lives, soon to leave the parental nest.
My sister was a strong-willed tomboy, not unlike a few of these daughters. I wonder if my father understood her any better than many of these men. Watching your friends' children grow is a far different matter than trying to plumb the mystery of your own progeny. I suppose that's what drew me in the first place.
As in any collection, you will love some and forget a few as soon as they end. I only bailed on one story, which failed to grab my attention within a few pages, and ran longer than most. By and large, they are incisive portraits - often moving, rarely humorous, but generally compelling.
Easy to pick up and put down - always a nice feature when reading in scattered moments of time.
Well worth it.
Most are true short stories - single days or incidents, moments when a father find himself utterly aware of the delicate strings connecting his daughter to himself. Some find their offspring mysterious, remote; they fear as much as love them. Other try, sometimes in vain, to understand the girls they have brought into the world, who are growing into their own lives, soon to leave the parental nest.
My sister was a strong-willed tomboy, not unlike a few of these daughters. I wonder if my father understood her any better than many of these men. Watching your friends' children grow is a far different matter than trying to plumb the mystery of your own progeny. I suppose that's what drew me in the first place.
As in any collection, you will love some and forget a few as soon as they end. I only bailed on one story, which failed to grab my attention within a few pages, and ran longer than most. By and large, they are incisive portraits - often moving, rarely humorous, but generally compelling.
Easy to pick up and put down - always a nice feature when reading in scattered moments of time.
Well worth it.
June 20, 2024
DNF. Was not a fan at all. The Fitzgerald short story (Baby Party) was enjoyable, but otherwise I felt that all of them had horrible representations of father-daughter relationships based only on valuing daughters for their innocence. Just felt horribly dehumanizing.
June 13, 2008
For some reason I really just couldn't get into the book....I guess I'm not much of a short story person....there is very little build up and then it's over. I read the first 5 stories and have moved on to another book
August 28, 2011
A look into but a few of the interesting relationships between fathers and daughters. Like snowflakes, no two will ever be the same.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews