Father of the Rain

by Lily King

A New York Times Editors’ Choice—“a gripping epic about a father and daughter that plumbs the dark side of a family riven by addiction and mental illness” (Entertainment Weekly). Gardiner Amory’s life is reeling—Nixon is being impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life negotiating her parents’ conflicting the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when the pair divorces, Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed in a deluge, the chasm between all of them widens, and Daley is stretched thinly across it. As she reaches adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world of her father’s prejudices and embarks on her own life—until Gardiner hits rock bottom. Returning home to help her father get sober, Daley risks everything she’s found beyond him, including a chance at love, in an attempt to repair a trust that was broken long ago . . . In this Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, Lily King pulls readers into “a brilliant exploration of the attraction of martyrdom, the intoxication of playing savior. . . . An absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line” (Washington Post).

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Coming Of Age, Family, Historical Fiction

369 pages, ebook

First published July 6, 2010

About the author

Lily King grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. She has taught English and Creative Writing at several universities and high schools in this country and abroad. Lily's new novel, Euphoria, was released in June 2014. It has drawn significant acclaim so far, being named an Amazon Book of the Month, on the Indie Next List, and hitting numerous summer reading lists from The Boston Globe to O Magazine and USA Today. Reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, Emily Eakin called Euphoria, “a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace.”

Lily’s first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Her third novel, Father of the Rain (2010), was a New York Times Editors Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Novel of the Year and winner of both the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Maine Fiction Award.

Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Ploughshares and Glimmer Train, as well as in several anthologies.

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh brother, here I am again, sitting all by myself. Don't listen to me, I’m Debbie Downer. Everyone thinks this book is the greatest thing since sliced bread—yeah, sliced bread is pretty great but not if it's Wonder Bread, all soft and fluffy and bland. No thanks. Gag. As I’m reluctantly chewing on this Wonder Bread, I wonder how King could write such a plain-jane story and also write the beauteous Euphoria? I couldn't wait to read this, all a-glow after Euphoria. What a letdown!

This is the story of a woman, Daley, and her relationship with her alcoholic father. The book has three parts and spans three decades. The first part, which takes place when Daley was 11, was boring. Or I guess I just wasn't in the mood for another kid who’s a victim of a dysfunctional family in the ‘burbs. (I’m usually all for dysfunction, but could I be getting sick of the same old same old?) So I couldn't wait to get to next decade, part 2, where Daley is finally an adult. But things got worse instead of better: I HATED the plot development and justified my hatred by claiming that it just wasn’t believable. Plus, I could see what was coming from a mile away. The story was starting to piss me off royally, and I quickly slashed my rating from a 3.5 to a 3. But, yay, part 3 starts! I’m relieved, and thank god, still curious enough to continue. But it ended up being too predictable, too perfect. I sat with the idea of 3 stars for a while, but I was antsy. I didn’t like it. Period. Give it 2 stars and shut up.

And as usual, a couple of editing nits. Early in the book, a character’s dad is a radiologist. Later, he’s a psychiatrist. No, he didn’t change professions, the writer just forgot what career she gave him early on. When this happens, I’m dragged out of the story and into the room where the writer and editor sit, neglectful. It’s just sloppy. And then there’s a short scene with a 6-year-old who doesn’t sound like she’s 6. She says things like, “watch carefully.” Come on now; she would say, “Look!”

But yes, Debbie Downer must admit the book isn’t all bad. King’s prose is clear. She can tell a straightforward story, and with economy she can paint a vivid picture of people and places. She even spouts a wise sentence or two.

The more I read, the more I learn what I like and don’t like. Reading this book, I realized I don't much like straightforward, realistic prose. It’s too simplistic and flat. It feels almost juvenile, robotic, or self-conscious in its plainness. I like language that sings, or if it doesn’t sing, it has to be sophisticated. I want some flair, some word play. Or something poetic, lyrical.

Or, if the language is utilitarian, meant to simply get a story told in the most straightforward way, then the plot better be dynamite. For me, that means stay away from trite lessons about love. Stay away from wretched parties with those boring descriptions of appetizers and outfits. Give me weird, give me edgy, give me dark.

Or give me an exotic locale, like I found in Euphoria. In Father of the Rain, the town was claustrophobic and deadening—vanilla-land with green lawns, clay tennis courts, and blue swimming pools.

I am certain this story would make a perfect movie for the Hallmark channel. It’s all about forgiveness, sacrifice, and Mother Theresa, and the characters are pretty damn wholesome and good-hearted. Yeah, we have an obnoxious alcoholic in the mix, but that’s not uncommon. There are a couple of sex scenes, but they could easily be edited out.

I have no idea what the book title means. The book is way too plebian to have a jazzy title like Father of the Rain. Why not just name the book “Father” to match the plainness within? I don’t remember any rain. I’m sure there’s symbolism in there somewhere.

And as I said earlier, I’m at a loss trying to understand how the same person could have written Father of the Rain and Euphoria. Maybe with Father of the Rain, King was working out her own daddy issues. In any case, I was glad this one was over. It’s easy reading and not very long, so at least the boredom didn’t last forever. Nothing, nothing, like the great Euphoria!

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lily King hits me in those tender places where I’ve just never grown up. It feels simple and embarrassing, and I sometimes rail against her. But most of the time she grabs me with a rich, inner life. It reflects mine, both utterly familiar yet alien, much like learning about your childhood neighbor. (Remember the first time at a friend’s house, with its different smells? This home smells like cat, or fried fish; this one smells of red wine and cherries, or citrus and cream; here I can almost taste the electronics. Parallel lives).

I loved how the protagonist’s close friends were against her big choice, and yet there I was, rooting for her the whole way. Her journey mattered. And I’m a sucker for the gray areas in relationships.

I did find the jumps in time a bit jarring. A testament to how immersed I was, but her transitions are not smooth. Luckily, there are only two of them in the book.

[Andy Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wonderful. Lily King has quickly become one of my very favourite authors.

[Canadian Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story started with a strong heart beat then somewhere in the middle, flatlined. There were a few desperate beats thereafter, but alas, it was too late. After having loved Euphoria, I was thrilled to find Lily King had written other novels. Sadly, this one just didn't measure up. And although King's powerful writing style was evident, the story couldn’t sustain itself. It started off with 12 year old Daley becoming a child of divorce. She adores her father who is a strongly opinionated, mean, alcoholic. As she matures, she physically and emotionally moves away from him, opting to avoid conflict rather than tampering with the delicate relationship they have. The story goes flat in part II. A lot of nothing happens until the end, when she returns home to get her dad into rehab. However, let’s face it, some alcoholics can never turn down a drink and so he remains a drunk and she moves further away. Part III tries to put it back together in a neat little chamber but there is only so much that can be done to resuscitate what’s already dead. I’m giving it 3★ only because there was potential.

[B the BookAddict · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the honest and painful story of the tumultuous deterioration of a father-daughter's relationship after divorce; seen at three stages in the daughter's life. Richard Russo said this was was haunting and it truly is. It's vivid and it's painful.

Gardiner Amory is a WASP and, in my opinion, a 'controlled' alcoholic. As he drinks, he goes through all the expected manifestations; he's funny, spiteful, mean and then sleepy. His world is turned upside down when his wife leaves him, taking Daley, his devoted daughter with her. Gardiner retaliates mainly by dishing his vitriol upon Daley. He is complex, volatile, at times joyful and other times mean-spirited but he's the only father Daley has and she loves him in spite of himself.

At eleven, when her parents divorce, Daley is shuffled between both parents. She is bewildered by her father's volte face towards her but refuses to abandon him. She suffers so much humiliation heaped on her by Gardiner and his new wife. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, Daley is immobile in the firing line of Gardiner's spite. Relegated to the role of the unwanted child on the weekends at her father's house, she treads each step warily and this shapes the personality of the woman Daley will become.

At twent-nine, she has chosen a life with values completely opposite to that of her father's. About to attain her professorship and in the first successful relationship she's ever had, Daley is in a good place. But she drops everything in order to go home when Gardiner starts to fall apart after his second wife leaves him. Her commitment to her acerbic Dad is heartbreaking. Even though all their values are such polar opposites, she refuses to abandon Gardiner and endeavours to save him from his dependence on alcohol. Alcohol being the thing which she believes changes her father from a loving Dad to a mean bitter one.

We then meet Daley and Gardiner some fifteen years later. I found this part of the book probably the most poignant and the most unpredictable. I reiterate – Richard Russo said Father of the Rain was haunting – and it is. I was mesmerised by this story - spellbound - and walked away at the end feeling raw, hollowed and a little dazed but not for the reasons you would think.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was such a surprise. This is a fascinating, perceptive and skillfully written view of a love/hate relationship between an alcoholic father and his only daughter, Daley. She narrates the story told in three sections starting with Nixon’s impeachment to the present day election of President Obama.

To the author’s credit, it never comes across as a moralistic primer for Al-Anon. It was quite dramatic with textured characterizations so real that even Gardiner Amory, Daley’s alcoholic and self-destructive father was sometimes charismatic, entertaining and even lovable. More often than not though…when he slips into his liquor-soaked rants, he could be equally disgusting and cruel. His inconsistent behavior made it plausible to believe that Daley could continue to love and hope to change her dad.

I was captivated by this book! It was an honest and heart-wrenching portrayal of the alcoholic and those family members caught within the maelstrom of conflicting emotions. I highly recommend this novel to readers that enjoy a fine, character driven story.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I held onto this book for over ten years before reading it, and spent the last several days installed in this engrossing, beautiful, tender and unsentimental novel about the family we create, and the one we can’t let go. The narrator, Daley, takes us through three personal decades, from the 1970s until 2008, and every word, sentence, and passage is resonant and bare. I thought Euphoria was my favorite of her novels, but this one is so spectacular and emotionally loaded, but with the lightest of eloquent touches, that I bow to King’s ability to bring me to my knees.

In some ways this novel was deeply personal to me. Deduct the Harvard, the drinking, and the WASP bigot, and my own father emerges. The way that Daley’s father, Gardiner, treated her mother reminded me of how my father pointedly vitiated my mother after their divorce. I grew up in Massachusetts, beaches were a prominent place for us, and I could palpate the novel’s vibe of the country club set.

Even though Gardiner was a WASP and bigot, and my family was Jewish, my father would almost smirk like Gardiner when Gardiner said, like a mantra, “I wonder what the poor people are doing today.” My father didn’t use those exact words, but he had that same outlook, that only the wealthy matter. Charm, chauvinism, sexism, and snobbery were part of Gardiner’s (and my father’s) character. My father’s addiction was women; Gardiner’s is alcohol.

Daley respected her mother’s open and compassionate worldview, but she often struggled to keep both her mother and father in one frame. As a young girl, it was difficult to balance her love for both of them, so much was the tension between the two parents. Daley’s parents divorced when she was eleven (I was ten), and I remember the gutted feelings of a child of divorce expressed by Daley--wanting to be in my mother’s world, but feeling overshadowed and judged by my father. Needing his love and support, too, but it was always his to take away.

As an adult, Daley made a life for herself in Michigan, far from her roots, and created her own “family” and sense of community. She has the love of her life standing by her, a true best friend, and a career about to skyrocket in academia. Her brother calls her that her father is essentially broken, at rock bottom, and Daley has to make some split-second, hair-raising decisions. There were times I wanted to cry out, to save her from herself, and I almost believed I could reach her, whisper my advice, change the text.

This book seared me, like hot ice, and sliced my nerve endings, carved through to my soul, eating little nibbles of me on the way. Within the piercing narrative I also felt hope, though, inching its way into my heart. King’s precision and detail made it vivid, and her epic story was relatable and universal, about what it means to love and suffer a family.

“…none of my knowledge will help me win a fight with my father. He will cling to his position even when all reason fails him; he will cling to it as if it’s his life and not his opinion that is in peril. He will get vicious and personal, and every negative thing he ever felt about me will pour out of his mouth. …His prejudices are a stew of self-hatred, ignorance, and fear. If those feelings could be rooted out and examined, maybe he wouldn’t have to drink so much to squelch the pain of them.”

[Zoeytron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, shoot.  This novel did not have the same feel to me that I have come to love with Lily King.  Not by the very longest shot.  

It's all about the relationship between a daughter and her alcoholic father for thirty or so years.  About accepting love, recognizing happiness when it occurs, repairing broken relationships.  Past slights, a reassembled smile, self-loathing, sacrifice.  How much is too much?  A serious argument might be made that sometimes it is simply easier to love a person from afar.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Click here to hear my thoughts on Lily King, this book, and all her other books over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!

“I’m not sure he has any idea who I am, but I’m glad I’m here.”
“He knows. He’s missed you.”
I don’t know that I believe her, but I’ve missed him too. We missed each other. We aimed and we missed.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father of the Rain begins with Nixon's resignation in 1974 and ends with Obama's election in 2008. Those epic, touchstone moments of American culture bookend this intimate epic of an American family, representing both the failure and potential of those whom we mount on impossibly high pedestals.

Daley Amory is eleven when her mother, weary of her husband's philandering and filled with a sense of possibility that the fiery political landscape allowed women at the time, takes Daley and moves out. Daley's childhood is splintered between two households: the apartment she shares with her mother in their wealthy Massachusetts coastal town and her former home a few blocks away where her father, Gardiner, holds court by the backyard swimming pool.

Gardiner is entrenched in his mid-century WASP ideals, with racism, anti-Semitism, and class-consciousness as much a part of his image as his club membership and the make of his car. He's a Harvard man, with a lazy morality that often accompanies privilege. Daley tells us, "In my father's culture there is no room for self-righteousness or even earnestness. To take something seriously is to be a fool. It has to be all irony, disdain, and mockery. Passion is allowed only for athletics."

In the mid-1970s, Gardiner's sloppy flirtations with his friend's wives and the oiling of his existential gears with noon martinis are socially acceptable. By the time she reaches young adulthood, Daley understands her father is a raging alcoholic.

Yet, Gardiner Amory is not wholly a despicable man. It's the wonder of Lily King's skill that she shows us precisely what an alcoholic can do to mask his desperation: Gardiner uses his charisma to create a veneer of humanity and humor, he doles out just enough emotion to hold Daley within his magnetic embrace. When Daley makes her heart-breaking decision, you will rage and want to shake sense into her until her teeth rattle, but you believe it's the only decision she could make. It's the woman Daley has become, but you sense it's not all she will be.

King reminds us that change is a process; we are not emotionally static beings, but there are times of forward motion in our lives, there are times when we regress, and for Daley, there comes a time when all time must stop.

Father of the Rain is told by Daley in three parts: her adolescence, when the classic dysfunctional family falls apart and a young girl struggles to find her place in the replacement family her father has selected in her absence; Daley in her late twenties, poised to take a tenure-track position at UC Berkeley with a newly-minted PhD in one hand and a devoted boyfriend in the other; and the brief, redemptive portrait fifteen years later, when the moon of Daley's love and loss makes its full revolution around her father's sun.

With grace and empathy, Lily King creates a richly-layered portrait of a relationship between a father and daughter. She writes through the outrages of addiction, the Savior complex, the work it takes to free oneself from childhood turmoil and emerge as a complete adult, with some of the warmest, most natural language I have encountered. Her characters, from the central cast to the minor players, are fully-realized and fascinating. In all the difficult questions it raises and the ambiguity of its answers, Father of the Rain is simply, clearly, a wonderful novel.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book totally grabbed me--I could not put it down. ME?! How could this be--I am neither a fan of contemporary novels nor of dysfunctional family tales?! What’s going on? What is it that makes this book work so well?

The central character’s problems became my problems. My head was atwirl. What would I do in her shoes? As I saw it she had no alternative but one, and that alternative stunk.

At this point you’re thinking, searching, groping for other alternatives. Nothing, absolutely nothing comes to mind. Then you start considering what is right and what is wrong. How in the world did this happen and who is at fault? Yeah, you get philosophical.

Lily King serves up a story that captures the difficulties that arise in a family where the once so innocent cocktail hour has become something more, a daily routine has morphed into a family problem. Differences of opinion, once little and insignificant, become huge. Families are torn, loving relationship destroyed and lives forever altered.

Whose responsibility is it to fix this?

The story has a reader considering what they would do in the situation that arises. The only choice possible feels completely wrong, and yet there is but one alternative for Daley and her alcoholic father. Should Daley give up a professorship at Berkeley to help her father?

We observe Daley and her family from the early seventies through to the 21st century. The setting moves from the East Coast to the West Coast with Michigan in between. Daley is eleven at the start. We observe who she has become at the story’s end. What choices has she made and what sort of family encircles her at the end? Were her choices right?

Alcoholism is one topic. Racism is another. Family relationships a third. What must a child of divorced parents deal with? If parents remarry, the family multiplies in size, rules and routines are altered, what was once stable and secure has vanished. How does this alter the young and what sort of adults do they become? Finally, when children of divorced parents have themselves become adults, what sacrifices are reasonable to ask of each other? To what extent should one prioritize family over personal goals and principles?

What is drawn is realistic. Over and over again I was struck by the realization that what characters say and do in this novel mirror real life to a T. The book keeps you asking what you would do in the given situation. What is drawn is difficult and hard, but hope and progress are evident too.

Cassandra Campbell’s narration of the audiobook is marvelous. She uses different intonations for each character, but none are exaggerated. She captures each one’s personality and mirrors this back to us in tone and manner of speech. Five stars for the narration. She gives a fantastic performance without drawing attention to herself.

Lily King is a contemporary author of fiction I intend to follow. Each book is different from the last. Where will she take us next?


****************
*Euphoria 5 stars
*Father of the Rain 4 stars
*The English Teacher 3 stars
*Writers & Lovers TBR soon

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meetings conducted by Al-Anon, the support group for family members of alcoholics, begin with some variant of this greeting, woven from solidarity and sorrow: "We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism understand as perhaps few others can." What grim knowledge these spouses and children harbor, forced into the contradictory roles of nurse, defender and victim. The proliferation of survivor memoirs and their popular auxiliaries -- the Redbook feature, the Oprah episode, the "Afterschool Special" -- tempt us to imagine that we have some idea of what living with an addict must be like, but for an understanding beyond the confessional or therapeutic, the very best novelists offer insight no one else can into that Sisyphean challenge. Marilynne Robinson's "Home" and Roxana Robinson's "Cost" are the most exquisite recent examples, and now Lily King's "Father of the Rain" is a worthy companion on this theme. Surprising and wise, it's the third novel -- after "The Pleasing Hour" and "The English Teacher" -- by a writer who understands the horrible burden of trying to save someone who's ruining your life.

"Father of the Rain" describes the conflicted relationship between an alcoholic and his only daughter, Daley, who narrates the story in three parts, from the mid-1970s to the present day. It opens in a small Massachusetts town when she turns 11 on the week her mother plans to walk out. From the first page, we're caught in the tangled lines of affection and menace that will hold Daley in thrall to her father for the rest of her life.

King has created such an arresting character, an obnoxious, needy man whose magnetism can turn in an instant from attractive to repulsive. Charming, good-looking and athletic, Gardiner is a Harvard grad from a wealthy family, a man capable of dazzling acts of generosity and hilarious stunts. But he's also frighteningly erratic and easily enraged, a bully who hates everything that's happened since 1955 and does his best to remain in the class-bound world where men at the club wear slacks embroidered with little ducks and banter good-naturedly with the black waiters. In a voice even more damning for its refusal to judge him, King describes Gardiner streaking naked through a children's party, reading Penthouse Letters to the family and telling racist jokes in his Uncle Tom accent. Young Daley struggles to see him as silly and fun, while adults -- enablers every one -- stand around laughing nervously.

If he were a little more violent, if his sexual transgressions were just an iota more predatory, we could peg him as a monster and Daley could be free of him forever, but that's the treacherous skill of the functional alcoholic that King captures here so well: Gardiner swaggers between normal life and chaos, just good enough to maintain a semblance of sobriety, civility, humanity. Daley is torn between the fear of losing her father and remaining in his company, never knowing when she might be the victim of his sudden callousness but desperate "to receive the full glow of that face." Nothing compares with how good she feels when he hugs her tightly and says, "You're mine. You're mine. Aren't you?"

This would be so easy to get wrong, to let slip into a slow-moving thriller or a pathetic tale of abuse. But the raw sincerity of their love for each other makes his behavior and her devotion all the more tragic. "I miss him so much," Daley thinks, "it feels like my skin is coming off."

Another aspect of "Father of the Rain" that deepens the story and broadens it beyond the dimensions of one family's disintegration is how effectively King lets us see the national drama playing out in the news. While Gardiner is stomping around bullying his wife and children, President Nixon is snarling at his enemies and reassuring the nation, struggling to maintain the illusion of normality before his house collapses, too. This natural resonance between foreground and background makes for an affecting portrait of a little girl losing all the pillars of respect and stability in her life.

The novel's next part, 18 years later, is just as successful and even more absorbing, the narrator's voice having aged into a more analytical and self-conscious tone. An adult with a promising academic career, Daley no longer feels bound by Gardiner. "My father has no power over me," she tells a friend. "He wasn't even a father." But, of course, paternal influence is not so easily brushed off, and King explores their complicated relationship with startling psychological acuity. "He disgusts and compels me," Daley admits, trying to understand the paradox of loving a horrid man. As the adult child of an abusive alcoholic, a man who downs a quart of vodka and settles into a vicious argument every night, Daley has learned her role too well: "I do not bring up politics, history, literature, lawyers -- especially Jewish lawyers -- or any other subject that can be linked, however loosely, to my mother. I do not tease, and I receive teasing with a smile; I keep my thoughts and opinions to a bare minimum. I ask questions. I make myself useful. I do not discuss my interests, my relationships, or my goals."

She knows intellectually that "this is a sick man whose problems I cannot remedy," but the temptation to save him proves irresistible. As much as the first part of the novel is propelled by the tension of Daley's fear, this second section, wavering between breakthrough and collapse, is a brilliant exploration of the attraction of martyrdom, the intoxication of playing savior. "I'm fixing something with my father that got destroyed when I was eleven years old," she tells her fiance, who, like all her friends, is baffled by her devotion.

King poses the questions so powerfully that you can't answer them easily: What kind of abuse finally abrogates one's responsibility to a self-destructive parent? What is too much to ask of a child? Daley claims, "The way I cope is to never have expectations, so I'm not disappointed," but she's lying, ignoring the desperate hope that keeps her attached to this man, keeps her sacrificing her own life for his. It's an absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

[Nette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost stopped reading after the first page, because it begins in a car with a girl, her new puppy, and her crazy drunk dad. I thought, it's the Chekhov's Gun Rule, and by page 80 the dad's going to drown the puppy in the swimming pool and ruin my week. But I soldiered on and: THE PUPPY IS OK. I REPEAT, THE PUPPY IS OK. And this book is SO wonderful -- sad, grueling, funny, relatable, and (once you stop worrying about the puppy) absolutely impossible to put down.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Once upon a time a beautiful lady lived with a handsome man in a big house near the sea. They had two lovely children, a boy and a girl. But the beautiful lady was not happy, and one day she took the little girl and all the jewelry and disappeared."(no spoiler here)

This is the story of Daley's life, her turbulently dysfunctional family and her love and loyalty towards her affluent, often inebriated, prejudice and, at times, abusive father.

Initially, I really did have my doubts about this novel, but was pleasantly surprised when I soon became engrossed with all the flawed characters to the point of fixation.

While this is a coming-of-age story, it is not for everyone as it does have many scandalous interactions between family and "friends" with some pretty vivid descriptions in an "au naturel" state. But........beautiful prose+........heartfelt story+........unpredictable alcoholic=........addictive page-turner. (without being heavy into alcoholism)

No animal abuse here either, just a great read!

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book by Lily King. Had I written a review at the time I finished it, it would have been very detailed and would have explored the nuances of this finely crafted novel and its exquisite writing. But it was a hectic period of my life and I could not do it, so now I will have to make do with a quickie, just to leave my impressions.

I love it when the macrocosm is analysed from within the microcosm. Here, the tale of the two Americas - the liberal, intellectual and self-righteous one and the conservative, contemptuous and aggressive one - is explored through the life of Daley Amory and her dysfunctional family. It starts when her socially committed and left-leaning liberal mother leaves her conservative and alcoholic father, during the downfall of Nixon, and traces Daley's troubled relationship with her father, and the consequences of the agonising choice she has to make right up to Obama's election in 2008. The writing is non-judgemental, the characters are sympathetically drawn (warts and all) and the narrative carefully structured.

The art of storytelling is ultimately about human beings. If it uplifts us, and confirms our belief in humanity, I consider it a job well done. One can say that for this novel.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've sobbed in a book and it's been since never that I've put the book down 10 pages from the end to do a Soduko puzzle because I didn't want it to end. I can't even explain why this book so deeply affected me. It's about a woman and her very complicated relationship with her father, spanning several decades. I have a great, easy relationship with my own father so it's not that I could relate. But somehow these characters really pulled me in. I loved all of them - Daley, her mother, Neal, Garvey, Jonathan, even, and especially, her father. There are also some truly funny moments. I am stealing one of Daley's mom's expressions. Scene: kids having fun. Mom: This is all going to end in tears. So true. Incredibly moving and well-written and I'll definitely be reading her other works.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book of Job: “Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?”

After reading King's last 4 published books I decided to explore her backlist. This her third published novel was first in hardback in 2010. I used both the print and the audio (an audible exclusive) narrated by Cassandra Campbell.

This story looks closely at a father/daughter relationship and the effects of it on a young woman as she grows into adulthood. It takes place in the 1950's in Massachusetts. Daley is 11 years old when her mother chooses to leave her alcoholic father and mother and daughter go first to New Hampshire and later to an apartment in the same town as her father. For the next several years she is shuffled between the two parents. Living with her mother during the week and in the home of her father (who soon remarries) on weekends.

It is the 1950's and functioning alcoholics are a norm in the upper class society of country clubs and elite homes. Her father's evening ritual of several martinis shapes their interactions and Daley's tendency to shape all her actions and responses by the number so far consumed. She looks forward to a time when she can escape and form a life outside her parents dual but often opposite ways of living.

Years later she finds herself caught once again in the drama of her father's drinking and takes on the task of reforming his behavior. It is easy to predict the outcome. Yet she gives up much in the hopes of repairing this relationship which formed so much of her upbring.

It was a well written if quite predictable story. I wondered how much of it was biographical and pertained to King's own upbringing. I also felt a close affinity for the subject matter as my own parents were divorced when I was eleven for similar reasons, my mother taking me with her when she left. So it was hard at times to view this story objectively. I did find my favorite parts of King's once again were her ability to draw into her story great relevant literary allusions. One she makes particularly relevant use of is The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot.

"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

(this poem is in the public domain)

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to read this, and left it just after the half way point. I'm been encouraged to rate it, regardless. I was reluctant until I thought about why I left this. I enjoyed Euphoria. It was primarily because this "Father of the Rain" book was so much "not my cuppa" that I thought I didn't have anything pertinent to say, but as I just wrote, I was encouraged. She's right, I need to review it. This does happen to me about 10% of the time with moderns. But often I will list it on my abandoned shelf with reasons and no ratings. Many moderns that others commonly rate 4 or 5 stars, I rate 2 or 3 stars or drop, as this one. Their "modern" narrator eyes seem just another species of human to me a fair amount of the time. Self-serving, whiners and people with such lack of self core identity and morals to good intent that as my Sicilian Mother would say are "crying with a loaf of bread under each arm." Too much looking backwards, and nearly no using the present/now or with any logic to looking forward. And VERY Wonder Bread most of the time, to me- too. All mush and no practical or enjoyable substance. Nothing to chew on for me. One of the stars is for the prose writing ability.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, I sent out a birthday invitation with the theme, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” Funny – or so I thought.

But for Daley Amory, the main character of Lily King’s poignant and at times heartbreaking Father of the Rain, those words are anything but funny. We meet her as an 11-year-old, torn between the liberal and do-good world of her mother and the conservative, erratic, liquor-soaked world of her charismatic and arrogant father. A WASP of the first-degree – rich, Harvard-educated, disconnected – his signature phrase, while lying on his chaise chair, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, is, “I wonder what the poor people are doing today.”

Daley soon learns the rules of engagement with her father: “In my father’s culture there is no room for self-righteousness or even earnestness. To take something seriously is to be a fool. It has to be all irony, disdain and mockery. Passion is allowed only for athletics. Achievements off the court or playing field open the achiever up to ridicule. Achievement in any realm other than sports is a tell-tale sign of having taken something seriously.”

This could fall into the world of stereotype or cliché – the toxic, alcoholic father and the daughter who tries to please him. But it doesn’t. Lily King takes great pains to paint Gardiner Amory – the father – as damaged but not evil. It is inevitable that the grown Daley try to reconnect with him and be the savior, attempting to liberate him from his alcohol dependency…as if that would make everything all right.

Her beau will say to her: “Oh Daley…you want the daddy you never got. You want him to make your whole childhood okay…You’ve got it nicely cloaked in a gesture of great sacrifice.”

The heartbreak, of course, is that none of us can ever “fix” another human being or get our childhood back. As Daley becomes more and more immersed in his world, falling into her charismatic and narcissistic father’s gravitational orbit, the stakes get higher and higher. There is not a false note in this authentic book, which takes the reader right into the vortex of a broken family relationship gone asunder. It is a compelling psychological study of how much we give up – including our own survival – to try to save and repair those relationships that are most dear to us. In a non-manipulative way, this book will pull at your heartstrings and stay with you.

[Camie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daley spends most of her young life mediating between her divorced parents and later dealing with her father Gardener Amory, a rich, womanizing , alcoholic ,who exposes his family to way too many adult situations.

[Imi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have very easily given the first part of Father of the Rain a high 4 star rating. The book begins during Daley's childhood years, as she struggles with facing her parents' divorce. This first section is painful to read, but feels true. 11-year old Daley struggles to understand why her world is falling apart, her separation for her father and the fact that he now has a new family. No matter what he's done, no matter that he is an alcoholic, self-absorbed, self-destructive and everything else, in the end he's still her dad. It's easy to sympathise with the all the characters in this first part, but particularly Daley.

The second and third parts didn't ring as true for me as the first. Daley's adult years felt a little too constructed (the perfect boyfriend/job/life that Daley has to sacrifice for her father, the fact her father's life falls apart at exactly the worst moment when she hasn't heard or really cared about him in years, the childhood crush still living in her hometown etc.) and the story lost it's believability. There are still poignant scenes and the relationship between Daley and her father is interesting, but I can't help feeling that too many times I felt I was being preached to in some way, and that things wouldn't play out this way for a real life dysfunctional family.

[Aly Lauck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Lily King books. This book was a great journey through a dad and daughter’s tumultuous relationship and the general complexities in familial dynamics. Great read.

[Sana Abdulla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A daughter tip toeing around her alcoholic sarcastic father has to deal with the breakup of her family when her mother takes her with her after the divorce. She has to endure her weekends with him and his new family.
I couldn't really understand his character very well, but I could understand the child's need to have his attention and approval.
The father daughter relationship seemed to say more about the daughter's inadequacy than the father. She was the one who couldn't stay away.
Not bad not amazing, just OK.

[Marykate Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I read Writers and Lovers, I have been on a Lily King kick. I liked Euphoria, which seems to be her most critically acclaimed novel, but I didn’t like that one as much as W&L, and this one is even better. The way she captures the emotional life of Daley is jaw-dropping. There are a few passages in this book that took my breath away. King’s ability to place her characters in historical and generational context as well as make them unique, dimensional individuals is uncanny.

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/fath...

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I really felt myself in Daley's shoes all the way through this novel. Every step of the way; I was Daley throughout the three sections of the book. That's an amazing accomplishment on King's part--to make little Daley so real she invaded my heart; and there's no way I'm going to put this book down until she finds happiness....or at the very least some form of contentment. Although much of the time during her childhood in part one I feel her misery deeply, I have to stick with Daley as she is abandoned, and hurt deeply; she's become real to me like few other characters in fiction have, and I am not going to be another person to abandon her.

(I want to note: I did NOT have a childhood like hers...quite the opposite, in fact. That's what makes King's ability to make her connection with me so surprising.)

In part one: Daley is a young pre-teen girl dealing with the divorce of her polar opposite parents; the mother a very active liberal, her father, as said in the synopsis, a prejudiced, classist alcoholic... though a very high functioning alcoholic who manages to hold down a good job (as evidenced by their lifestyle, grand house, nanny, and just the right schools for the children).

The book opens with Daley on a trip with her father--the day after her eleventh birthday--having picked out her present from the pet store. Her choice of any full-bred dog in the place; she curiously picked the ugliest one in the shop....disappointing her father, a lover of dogs his whole life, with plenty beautiful full-breeds at home (which he surprisingly manages to care for his entire life--no patter what state he is in), he soon gets over his pouty disappointment though, because it is her birthday after all, and shows the dog quite a bit of love, completely unaware that she had reasons to choose such an ugly dog.....thinking it would make what was coming a bit easier. He didn't know that her mom was going to leave him, taking Daley to her grandparents home for the summer....leaving her dad, her home, friends, and pre-payed lessons. And forcing her into uncomfortable secrecy.

*****I will continue this review tomorrow

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published 2010.
This is my third book by Lily King this year, she’s become a favorite author. This was a great read, not an easy read. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all known someone with the disease alcoholism. Maybe it’s a family member, friend, co-worker or acquaintance. Alcoholism is a heartbreaking, frustrating, helpless disease, this is my view from the outside looking in. King does an excellent job of capturing the father-daughter relationship between Dayley and Gardiner Amory. We may not like the person who’s sick, but we never stop loving them. A powerful, emotional read! I lost a dear loved one in June of 2020 from this disease, my SIL. He battled this demon the majority of his life. This one was personal for me.

[Ericca · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first 5 star read of 2024! Literally just finished the last page…teary eyed…just thinking to myself, wow, that was a good book. A really, really good book. While reading, I couldn’t help thinking of my own dad…there were a few similarities between him & Gardiner…yah, some not so great similarities, but…then, he’d go & do something nice or funny, & you’d just be like, “it’s just dad…it’s just who he is”. This isn’t only a story of a father & daughter relationship…to me, it’s the heart of the book, but there’s soooo much more. I think Lily King might just be one of my favorite authors.

[Esil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first section dealing with Daley's childhood was brilliantly done. Wee written and really good sense of her perspective. The rest felt a bit more pat, but this was still a worthwhile read. I would give it 3 1/2 stars.

[Jen K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming of age story but also delving into a complicated father/ daughter relationship. Set in a WASPy coastal town in Massachusetts, Daley tries to hard to win her father's attention and affection but often loses out to her older brother, the champ of tennis which her father loves to play and coach at the club. When her mom decides to leave her father with her at age 11, leaving only a note on the table, Daley's relationship is further strained as she is apparently complicit in the desertion. Her father quickly finds a replacement family and spirals into alcoholic and psychological abusive relationships. As Daley grows into adulthood, she continues to be haunted by this complicated and somewhat failed tie to her father.

The relationships were so real and so tragic. I was raging against many choices and decisions made. I was fell fully into the complexities of the family.