Sunday, July 30, 2006
** Fathers and Daughters, ed. by Jill M. Morgan. Women's fiction, memoirs.
I'd bought this book because it had stories in it by Diana Gabaldon and Carole Nelson Douglas. Other than the fact that it makes my collections of their works complete, I should have saved my money.
It's an anthology version of sappy, over-sentimental stories you might find in the Father's Day letters to the editor section of any newspaper, or expanded versions of the sentiments you find on the serious Father's Day cards, and the fact that the stories/memoirs were all written by bestselling authors didn't make them any more interesting.
Frustratingly, even though I only read one story at a time, interspersing other books between the stories, they still ran together--to me, it felt as though they were all written about 2 or maybe 3 fathers. Which could be because the authors are mostly contemporaries. Seems like all the fathers were uncommunicative, but fair, and all of them were into playing baseball. They were all pretty much stereotypical fathers of the 40s and 50s. Ho-hum.
I suppose some of my cynicism comes from my distant relationship with my own father, but I am not a fan of sentimentalism, regardless how it's directed.
...more
Categories: Books, 2stars, WomensFiction, Memoir
Labels: 2 stars, books, memoir, WomensFiction
