Onze vader

by Marilyn French

Stephen Upton is een van de rijkste en machtigste mannen van Amerika; hij is vertrouweling van de president en de boezemvriend van directeuren van grote ondernemingen. Nu ligt hij, getroffen door een beroerte, in het ziekenhuis - hij zweeft tussen leven en dood. Dicht bij het hospitaal, in het grote familiehuis, hebben zijn vier dochters zich verzameld. Het zijn halfzusters: ze hebben ieder een andere moeder en daardoor hebben ze elk een heel ander leven geleid. Het gedwongen samenzijn in de crisis zorgt ervoor dat ze voor het eerst aan elkaar hun verhaal vertellen. Bijeengebracht door het lot, wachtend tot hun vader weer bij bewustzijn komt, leren ze elkaar kennen, van elkaar houden en komen ze ertoe hem te confronteren met wat hij hun heeft aangedaan.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Feminism, Novels, Roman, American

470 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

She attended Hofstra University (then Hofstra College) where she also received a master's degree in English in 1964. She married Robert M. French Jr. in 1950; the couple divorced in 1967. She later attended Harvard University, earning a Ph.D in 1972. Years later she became an instructor at Hofstra University.

In her work, French asserted that women's oppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture. Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals (1985) is a historical examination of the effects of patriarchy on the world.

French's 1977 novel, The Women's Room, follows the lives of Mira and her friends in 1950s and 1960s America, including Val, a militant radical feminist. The novel portrays the details of the lives of women at this time and also the feminist movement of this era in the United States. At one point in the book the character Val says "all men are rapists". This quote has often been incorrectly attributed to Marilyn French herself. French's first book was a thesis on James Joyce.

French was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1992. This experience was the basis for her book A Season in Hell: A Memoir (1998).

She was also mentioned in the 1982 ABBA song, "The Day Before You Came". The lyrics that mentioned French were: "I must have read a while, the latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style".

French died from heart failure at age 79 on May 2, 2009 in Manhattan, New York City. She is survived by her son Robert and daughter Jamie.

Reviews

[Mahayana Dugast · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dramatic story about four half-sisters reunited at the bedside of their dying father, a high society man who has rubbed shoulders with presidents and other elites. Secrets will be shared and crimes discovered... really good.

[Di · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disappointment. Feminist icon and author of "The Women's Room" writes about feminism in Nicey Nice Land - where Mrs Somebody (the domestic servant) serves an omelet to the lunch guests and everyone "changes for dinner". It's also where the perpetrator of repeated, regular incestuous rape with his daughters (one only an infant) is loved and treated with respect and decency. Sadly, I think this book is an insult to all women and rape victims in particular.

[Elaine Cougler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! What an insightful book. From the outset French packs a wallop and this continues, building suspensefully, to the end. Four half sisters who have been raised by a brute of a father come together on the occasion of his major stroke. Having been raised separately and with hate, they begin their journey into discovery with rancor and plenty of bitter words. Gradually this passes and is replaced by an acceptance of and even love for each other. Great story laced with lots of political and philosophy of life themes. French is an author I will be seeking out again.

[Tasnima · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first this book seemed really fractured and fll of hate and snobbery. I was not even sure why I was reading it! Then things came together and it became a joy to read. I like the way that feminism is presented--not some sort of logical argument, but gently creeping in as inevitable, undeniable.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

you know those conversations you have in your head about your life and the people in it.. multiply that by 4...as these women overcome their differences as they overcome their past and their differences to find that sisterhood may be a love worth having.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting read to witness how childhood identity prevails through money, power, love and heartbreak.

[Maria Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lang, aber doch ganz spannend :)

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Famed presidential advisor Stephen Upton has a stroke and his four grown daughters (by four different mothers) gather at his Boston mansion to await his death or recovery: Lizzie, the eldest, well educated, cold and calculating; Mary with seven marriages and now money problems; Alex, who no one knows because she left the house when she was very young; and the illegitimate Ronnie the “Chicano” no one knows about—the result of a long relationship their father had with the mansion’s housekeeper.

They learn they were all sexually abused by their father and that when he dies, they will all inherit a great deal of money.

This is a story of how a family keeps secrets.
Although each of the sisters start out hating one another, they all eventually develop close sisterly ties through this experience at his bedside.

[Brigitte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dit is de allereerste keer dat een boek halverwege het lezen weer de kast ingaat.....Heb mezelf tot bladzijde 270 geworsteld. Wat een verschrikkelijk saai en langdradig boek ! Hoe erg ik het ook vind wat de (half-)zussen in dit boek is overkomen, ik vond de dames geen van allen sympathiek. Zodra ik merk dat ik er tegenop zie om een boek te lezen, moet ik mezelf echt aan leren om mezelf gewoon een plezier te doen en te stoppen met het boek te lezen puur uit beleefdheid naar de schrijver / schrijfster.

[Janet Adkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book irritating to read. Not much of anything happened for the first 2/3 of the book. However I was a bit curious so I did finish the book. The last 1/3 of the book was more interesting to read.

[Nadelle Sage · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read but not something that really grabbed me. It feels like too much emphasis is put on race and class and not enough on story. Not something I would recomend.

[Femke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful

[Caroline Mcphail-Lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! French hits the reader upside the head with family issues & just keeps at it right through to the final page! Loved the characters, plot, setting, themes, etc. Enjoyed it immensely!

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An abridged version would be far preferred! The dialogue is tedious due to the tiresome themes of anger, resentment and victimization.

[Marianna]

An eye opening read.

[Peg Tittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Selected excerpts and comments ...

“I wanted to command attention the way he did, learned how to do it too, Clare said I had it down, but not the same, they don’t listen to me the same way, it’s different. They liked listening, looking up to him, elder statesman. They don’t like listening to me.” p22

“Oh, why didn’t I go? Nobody asked me.” p110

Because we’ve been taught from the beginning that we must not ask, we must wait. Wait for a man to ask us to the prom, to ask us out for a drink, dinner, a date, marriage. Along with the convention that those events are supposedly of utmost importance in a woman’s life, it’s no wonder we grow up waiting to be asked for — everything. Jobs, membership on task forces and projects, raises, promotions, clients … all the things that put us on the ladder, and help us ascend, to status and income.

Imagine a world in which boys were reprimanded for asking, we taught they must wait— Well, full stop there.

And imagine, of course, that women seldom ask them for anything of importance because, well, men just aren’t that important, except as escorts in one way or another …

And it’s not just that. The few of us who do ask are told ‘no’ (if our asking is indeed acknowledged, ‘heard’…). (And note, we don’t respond to rejection with a shooting spree.)

So often, we eventually stop.

“Is that all I am to him, a shudder in the loins? Is that all fatherhood is?” p216

“Poor kid, what must that feel like, your own father doesn’t even have the interest to lay eyes on you.” p216

“All I want is some answers. … I don’t care about the money.” p222

…

“You’re asking for something he doesn’t want to give.” p223

No, more likely, something he doesn’t have. I dare say we impute too much self-awareness to men on issues like this.

“He was so powerful things just appeared before him when he wanted them.” p227

Right. Men don’t even have to ask. And women don’t ask. Partly because they’ve been taught all their lives not to; we’re supposed to just wait … See above. And partly because when we do ask, we don’t get what we’re asking for anyway. See This is what happens, Chris Wind.

“… that you and generations of men before you felt that incest was their prerogative, their right—that fathers own the bodies of their daughters as they do those of their wives and slaves. And that they believe they have the right to own other human beings, to control them, that indeed, they define manhood as the ability to control others.” p296 (my emphasis)

“… you [the father who raped her when she was a child, telling her the whole time that he loved her…] destroyed utterly my ability to discriminate love from power, sex from submission. You ruined my emotional life. Forever.” p300

Does that explain the possibly increasing preference for ‘rough’ sex?

“This left me with a sense of helplessness and inferiority—a sense that I have no existence, don’t matter—that I will have to battle as long as I live.” p302

Don’t need to rape your daughters to do that. Just ignore and belittle them from the moment they’re born until they finally get the fuck out of your house.

“Even though I never harmed you—after all, I have no responsibility for my own existence, my ow birth—and never wished you ill, you have condemned me to eternal shadowhood and pain.” p303

Indeed. Men, why do you create something in order to ignore it, abandon it, to hurt it so? Because perverse ‘masculinity’ requires it. And you buy it. Masculinity.

“I don’t have to have another husband. The thought shocked her into utter stillness.” p318

Pity more women don’t realize that at eighteen. In our current society, we don’t need to marry a man. End of story. Take advantage of that!

[Soren · Rating 1 out of 5]

First thing as always: Trigger warnings. Major warnings for fairly detailed and relatively frequent discussion of Child Sexual Assault. I don't care if anyone thinks this is a spoiler. Anyone who might be triggered by that content deserves far better than this book gives this topic. Also, the author has a casual relationship with slurs (both those that... "apply"... and those that don't, which is fascinating to me. She just really seems to like using slurs, because it's never discussed. And the women are valiant for "overcoming" these viewpoints).

I have read few books as sophomoric, immature, poorly written, and *irritating* as this one.

This author has a horrid allergy to the word "said"-- in a fit of utter absurdism, they 'shriek' and 'screech' and 'sob' and 'moan' and 'shout'. They never talk like normal human beings. It's cringy at best. The author also doesn't understand point of view, perspective, or narration. She seamlessly shifts, some times in the middle of sentences, between first or third person with zero indication. Sentences are frequently borderline completely illegible, gibbering on with absolutely no punctuation as the characters have a spontaneous internal dialog indicated by nothing beyond a sudden and random shift to "i". If you make it past the first 50 pages, I salute you (after that I kind of got used to it).

This book is a crime of pseudointellectualism. Other reviewers call this author an intellectual feminist, but based on this book alone I have my doubts (considering none of the characters once actually reflect accurate feminist rhetoric...). The author babbles on and on about shit that has nothing to do with what we are supposed to believe is the main plot (I think? Based on the back of the book. The characters spend more time screaming and bitching and moaning than the back of the book would ever have led me to believe).

I also fail to see the point of this book, for some reasons said above. Long, "intellectual" rants mixed in with three catty women shrieking at each other before shortly proclaiming undying love. It's a messy jumble of half-baked, unfounded ideas slapped together with a bizarre incest/Rape tension point *that becomes a background fact*. When I wasn't completely lost in middle-school level grammar and idea organization, I could not believe the author would actually write some of these things down. Over half of this book did not need to be included because it isn't actual plot, it's fluff. They talk and drink and talk and drink and talk and drink. The other half is fairly disturbing "daddy broke me" rhetoric.

[Sondra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four lively, intelligent, and attractive women, ranging in age from early twenties to late fifties, all of whom were fathered by the same man with four different mothers, gather at their dying father’s estate on the outskirts of Boston to grieve over the old man’s impending demise. Estranged from one another since childhood, the four half-sisters are hostile to one another until they learn, through a combination of conversation and intuition, that they all share the same horrific family secret. Having all been scarred by the same severe childhood trauma, the sisters slowly learn to overcome their differences and bond with one another in a way that allows them to experience family closeness for the first time in their lives.

Having previously read author Marilyn French’s first and most widely read novel "The Women’s Room", I was already familiar with French’s intense brand of feminism when I started reading "Our Father". The message is clear from the very first chapter: The patriarchal family system under which our civilization has existed for hundreds of years is responsible for a multitude of sins that leave deep scars not only on the women and children who are its primary victims, but on the men as well.

While I might not agree totally with the author's feminist manifesto, I have no doubts as to her talents as an author and novelist. As in every profession, experience tells, and I found this novel far superior to the previous one. When I read "The Women’s Room" several years ago, I gave the book only three stars for what I believed was a lack of style and a somewhat sloppy construction. "Our Father" is a great improvement. The characters are more sharply drawn, the setting more descriptive, and the plot suspenseful and tightly constructed. The feminist message is delivered with a lighter touch that does not completely overwhelm the merits of the story as a work of fiction. Even traditionalists and non-feminists could enjoy this book as a compelling work of fiction.

In addition to being a well-crafted and absorbing novel, "Our Father" deserves kudos for shedding light on a cultural taboo that is far more common and far more damaging to the female psyche than most people would choose to believe.

[Bread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwer zu lesen für den Magen, aber die Gefühle, die die Schwestern gegenüber dem Täter fühlen, derem eigenen Vater sind eine herzzerreißende Realität. Das ganze Buch dreht sich meiner Meinung nach um genau das: die Gefühle davor, währenddessen und danach und wie man sich außerhalb des Kontexts eines traumatischen Ereigniss als Mensch verhält und wie man außerhalb dem Kontext der lebensveränderten Gewalt, die einem angetan wurde, nur schwer existieren kann und sich vielleicht niemals davon trennen kann.

Dass es 4 Schwestern sind und jede eine andere Art von Manipulation erleben musste, zeigt Ursache und Wirkung und wie verschieden die Grausamkeit von einem Mann aussehen kann, sogar von nur einem einzigen Mann.

Plus: Im anderen Sinne leicht zu lesen, ich finde die Schreibweise hier sehr direkt und ohne großes Drumherum-Gerede.

Was ich witzig bzw. bisschen lächerlich fand sind die nicht-weißen Charaktäre und deren Beschreibungen. Es ist ein Konzept, welches wir weiterhin in unserer Zeit mit inklusiven Medien sehen. Vielleicht war es einfach nur unangenehm zu lesen. Ich frage mich, ob Sie von Afro-Latinos oder anderen Latein Amerikanern oder Einheimischen sich Beratung geholt hat, wenn nicht, dann finde ich Vieles bezüglich der Identität, Redeweisen und Beschreibungen von Ronnie und Ihrer Familie einbisschen überspitzt.

[Anne Slater · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a beach book, less than masterpiece, this is a book for women who are thinking, or who have thought, about what it means to be "feminist", indeed simply to be a female person in the world of a very strong man.

What drew me in immediately was the way French gives each of the sisters her own voice; the way she makes them argue with each other, with themselves; the way she makes them really see that together they are stronger than they could ever have imagined.

The dirty secret hidden in the story comes out appropriately slowly; there are startling moments of insight and anger; there is a part that I won't even give an adjective to; there is a false start at the very end, and then a reprise of sisterhood's wonderful thrall.

A worthwhile read.

[Andrea George · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about "Our Father" by Marilyn French. The novel started off interesting enough. However, it was a bit convoluted and at times, making it difficult to follow the characters. I liked the dynamics of the various sisters and the difficulties they faced being raised by different mothers. As they come together and get to know one another on a more personal level, a dark secret is revealed. This is where I found the plot to lose its luster. The dialogue and behavior of the main characters were so unrealistic, it just didn't hold my interest. The ending, in my opinion, was a letdown.

[Anne Mcginnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn't read Marilyn French before but I knew of her reputation as an icon of feminism. This book was a compulsive read but I feel it could have been a much better book if French would refrain from preaching and let her characters do the work.
The four women are such stereotypes that it was difficult to relate to any of them as people. There were times as their relationship developed that I thought I could warm to them, but then French destroyed the moment with unrealistic preachy dialogue and argument.

[Katie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovingly crafted exploration of the many abuses of power women are on the receiving end of and continue to perpetrate against themselves and each other.
She speaks to the power of love, connection and self honouring, exposing the loneliness of social status, capitalism and snobbery that many of us, if not all, mistake for meaning.
Nicely done and well written.

[Chris Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*. This book really made me think. About the relationship we have with people in our life. I didn’t like the sisters at times and felt sorry for them at times. The dad was a really shitty piece of work.

[Ladyfilosopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found out the "Why should I care about them?" Gracefully interwoven narratives of 4 disparate sisters illustrate the need for a renewal of our commitment to caring. #EthicsofCare awaits our attention

[Dore Blaauwbroek · Rating 2 out of 5]

De vertaling was niet altijd even goed. Op zich een mooi verhaal van zussen die weer tot elkaar komen. Wel veel tekst, had echt veel korter gekund. Daarnaast was er steeds een perspectiefwisseling. Daardoor wist je steeds niet vanuit wie je las.

[Carolyn Morick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dark tale of sexual abuse

[Anne-Trine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too long ... Too many words ...

[Tina Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding novel for women in the modern age.

[Wentzel Lombard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking novel that is at times very abrasive, but speaks to the intricacies of families and relationships.