Review by Booklist Review
Just in time for Father's Day, Henry, founding editor of Ploughshares, and Pulitzer Prize winner McPherson, whose most recent work is Crabcakes (1998), collect a range of thoughtful essays on men's relations with their female children. Most contributors are writers--or teachers as well as practitioners of writing--and their often revelatory essays cover everything from a father's ambiguous, sometimes fifth-wheel involvement in the birth of his daughter (Philip Lopate) to a divorced dad's Mexican journey with his college-age daughter, diagnosed with leukemia (William Petersen). Both editors contribute essays--on coping with adolescent independence and postdivorce visitation, respectively--as do Adam Schwartz, Samuel Shem, Roger Kamenetz, Rick Bass, Howard Junker, Gerald Early, Fred Viebahn, Nicholas Delbanco, Gary Soto, Mark Pendergrast, Alan Cheuse, M. G. Stephens, Scott Sanders, Bill Mayher, and George H. Smith. Only five pieces have been previously published elsewhere; most represent the writer's response to the editors' call for "honest explorations of conscience" after recent "decades of questioning, polarization, and social change." --Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Lily, Annie, Katie Chun, Anya, Mary Katherine, Lowry, Madison, Linnet, Ruth, Aviva, Francesca, Andrea, Mariko, RachelÄthese are among the daughters whose stories their fathers chronicle here. All the pieces commissioned for this book by Henry, founding editor of Ploughshares, and McPherson (Crabcakes) are literate and absorbing; several have appeared elsewhere. In the most wrenching selection, Mark Pendergrast, author of For God, Country and Coca-Cola, relates the estrangement of his two daughters, who broke off contact with him after supposedly retrieving "memories" of his sexual abuse. In one of the most enlightening accounts, Samuel Shem, a psychiatrist, who with his wife traveled to China to adopt their daughter, details the gender differentiation to which boys and girls in all cultures are subject from the earliest age. Fred Viebahn (The Stain) talks about raising a biracial child with his wife, the poet Rita Dove. And in the most poignant account, William Petersen, a fishmonger and writer, relates a trip to Mexico with his daughter, who is gravely weakened by leukemia. This is a collection for those interested in bedrock human relations. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Fathers, long considered to be less involved with their children than mothers and prone to disinterest and even abandonment, are the subject of this collection of essays. The book focuses on the concern fathers feel for their daughters and includes the overwhelming sense of responsibility that accompanies fatherhood. The collection, which begins with a piece about birth and ends with one about an anticipated death, comments on the various stages of a daughter's life. Especially moving is Mark Pendergrast's account of his dismay and horror when both his grown daughters became involved in the recovered memory movement and accused him of abuse. The outstanding feature of this collection lies in the deep commitment to fatherhood that the writers express. It is refreshing, in this age of competition and hostility between the sexes, to witness such respect and admiration from men toward their wives, ex-wives, and daughters. Highly recommended for all public libraries.Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
These essays by writers including Rick Bass, Alan Cheuse, Nicholas Delbanco, Mark Pendergrast, and editors McPherson (Crabcakes, 1998, etc.) and Henry (founding editor of Ploughshares magazine), among others, strike deep into the heart of issues spanning both nurture and gender relations, and represent some of the best recent writing about manhood. Looking beyond a politicized definition of the father-daughter relationship, the editors have sought for this collection essays that express what they call ``the perplexities of parenting daughters during these decades of questioning, polarization, and social change.'' The results are grouped by life-stage (``Arrivals,'' ``Early Childhood,'' ``Girlhood and Adolescence,'' etc.). In the opening essay, about the birth of his daughter, Lily, Phillip Lopate struts his stuff, skillfully combining humor and seriousness to arrive at a persuasive rejection of solipsism. Fictionists Adam Schwartz and Samuel Shem are both fathers of adopted Chinese orphans. Says Shem in describing his young daughter's searching intensity, ``Living with Katie is like living with a twenty-four-hour-a-day Zen master.'' Gerald Early, himself an African-American, recalls teaching his teenage daughter to drive and her search for a race-free identity. DeWitt Henry worries about his teenage daughter's late-night partying, and Gary Soto writes about living with depression as a father. All of these perspectives reveal hard-won insights about parenting girls and young women from a man's perspective. As might be expected of any thematic collection, some of the essays here are stronger than others. But the best are truly memorable, as with McPherson's ``Disneyland,'' in which separation and race figure prominently, and which incorporates a haunting jazz-like refrain; and photographer William Peterson's ``Border,'' about a last trip to Mexico with a daughter dying of leukemia (``there are some things you cannot accept''). Fine personal writings, to be published for Father's Day, that deserve a wide audience.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
