Father of the Rain: A Novel

I am unfamiliar with the terrain so deftly drawn by Lily King, author, of Father of the Rain. However, I recognized certain behaviors that are vividly described here only because I worked in a mental health facility. How does Lily King knows so much about parental distance, lack of real parental love, loneliness and yearning for a father's love. How does she know so much about self-sacrifice? Daley feels these things, and they seem so genuine that it hurts a reader.

I did not `love' this book and yet, I simply could not put it down. Daley got to me, oh boy, did she ever grab me and not let go. When we first meet Daley, she is a young girl seeking her father's recognition and, most of all, his love. Her father, Gardner, appears to be unable to provide the basic emotions and supports that children deserve. He is an alcoholic and a mean-spirited, bigoted one at that.

Allow me to describe my picture of Daley as an eleven year old girl. She is standing barefoot, in a corner, on bare floors with pleading eyes gazing at her father. Her eyes speak. They whisper, `See me, acknowledge me, love me. Please.' I have the environment all wrong for Daley comes from a rather wealthy family. That said, she is not a rich girl.

Her parents divorce. Her father marries Catherine - another menacing force.
Daley goes away to college, develops into a lovely young woman, obtains what appears to be an ideal job, and meets a fabulous man. At the very same time, there is a crisis at home. Apparently, she feels that a certain decision must be made. Now, I begin to speak to this book, and I say, `No! Don't do it!' Lily King has other plans for Daley and her father.

There is a great deal of dysfunction here, as well as self-sacrifice. This book demonstrates how children cope when their father is disengaged from most of the important aspects of their lives. I found it interesting that certain women were attracted to this man.

If you are able to suspend disbelief, at times, I think that you will really enjoy reading `Father of the Rain.' Since I like to dissect characters, I must say that there are enough characters here to make this a most compelling book. The secondary characters are almost as interesting as the main ones. The prose, at times, is beautiful. The book has great amounts of humanity, and I always love that.

Suffice to say, the author of this book knows alcoholics and their behaviors. Her portrayals of the stages of drunkenness and how they play across the alcoholic's face on any given night, the snappishness, the denial, the secrets, the inappropriateness, are rendered with fantastic nuance and insight. I lived this life during the same era the protagonist did, and to say I related acutely to her experience, her feelings, her great care not to trigger those explosive drunken rages, is an understatement. I teared up often during the first -- and best -- part of this book.

Once Daley leaves Ashing, however, much of the narrative force is lost. We find her some years later, transformed into and surrounded by academic prigs I did not particularly like or find very genuine. Many of the characters that exist outside Ashing felt false to me. They felt like ideas, "lessons" for us readers, placed in the story solely to make a point. The events, locations and people within Ashing, though, have a rougher, realer texture and are written with authentic feeling.

Daley's attempts to reconcile the father she has with the father she might have wanted are heart-wrenching. It is true; we love our alcoholic parents but hate their behaviors. We pine for some other kind of parent and yet love what is known and familiar about the messy, embarrassing ones we have. The paradoxical nature of these relationships is nicely drawn in this book and it is a worthy, compelling read.

Without question, Lily King is a fine writer. And this is a an incredibly accurate portrayal of a daughter trying to traverse the impossible chasm between herself and her alcoholic father. Gardiner Amory is someone I feel I've encountered many times over the years: educated, angry, occasionally whimsical, and most of the time en route to being in a state of raging drunkenness. King's depiction of this man is just flawless, as is her depiction of daughter Daley's efforts to deal with the madness alcohol too often brings into the lives of an alcoholic's family. The depiction of Daley's efforts is the most successful and most truthful aspect of the book. It is this ongoing battle that makes the tale so compulsively readable. What brings the book down are the (mercifully few) too-graphic sexual scenes--both those witnessed by Daley as a child and those in which she is a participant. They are so inelegant that they drag down the narrative and are absolutely wince-provoking. It's hard to decide what author King intended to achieve with these few scenes but the book definitely suffers from the ugly images she has painted. That said, it is a worthwhile book, even an important one. Rarely have I read a novel that got it so right when it comes to alcoholism and its pernicious effects on everyone near to the alcoholic. Recommended.

John Updike made the lives of Boston's suburban elite his territory--emphasizing their sense of entitlement and superiority, their "clubbiness," their alcoholism, and their sexual experimentation. One generation later, Lily King shares her similar insights within a similar, more "Brahmin" Massachusetts setting. Dividing her novel into three parts, she tells the story of Daley Amory, daughter of Gardiner and Meredith Amory, from her eleventh birthday, during the Presidency of Richard Nixon, through her forties and the election of Barack Obama. Though she lives for long periods of time during those years without contact with her alcoholic father, she never really escapes her need for him, even, on occasion, subsuming her own "best interests" to care for him.

With a fine eye for imagery, an unerring ear for dialogue, and a firm grasp of the depths of emotion that underlie the interplay between Daley and Gardiner, she creates a novel that establishes her themes about daughters and their fathers, a surprisingly rare subject for fiction. The novel opens on Daley's eleventh birthday, just before her mother leaves her father and persuades Daley to come with her to her parents' house in New Hampshire for the summer. Three months later, after a summer in New Hampshire, Daley returns to her former home to visit her father-and finds him living with someone else, the woman's daughter sleeping in Daley's bedroom.

Part II takes place during a going-away party for Daley in Michigan sixteen years later. Having completed her advanced degree, she is about to begin work in California. Then she gets a call saying that her father needs her. In Part III, Daley is the mother of two children. She has had no contact with her father for fifteen years. And then she gets another phone call asking her to return to see him.

Gardiner Amory is nearly impossible to like, primarily because he is so ignorant and self-satisfied. He has no interests beyond the elite little world of his town and his club. Snide and snobbish, he is a manipulator, willing to do anything to get his own way. His profanity, his alcoholic tantrums, his insulting behavior toward his succession of wives, and his flagrant sexual performances are more than many readers will want to know about. It is this last issue which, unfortunately, casts a clinker into the mix of scenes--several sexual episodes so (unnecessarily) explicit that they will, for some readers, negatively affect the thoughtfully observed mood and style of the novel overall.

Daley is sympathetic and largely believable. Though her decision to nurse her weak father emphasizes her overwhelming need for him, the length of her stay is more difficult to understand. The fact that her devotion is taken for granted, rather than appreciated, makes her stay especially hard to credit. A fascinating look at the extent to which girls and women yearn for a father and the lengths to which they will go to make that father love them, Father of the Rain is a thoughtful novel which shows the evolution of a woman who must help her father, with his limited view of life, even as her own world view is expanding. Mary Whipple

I like Lily King. Her writing is always good, her stories are the kind you want to zip right through. I enjoyed both the Pleasing Hour and the English Teacher, and looked forward to this book about a father-daughter relationship. I enjoy family stories, especially when there are realistic characters that are like people you might know. So many people have already discussed the plot. I was particularly impressed with her characterization of Gardiner, the father, who is an alcoholic on a slippery slope to nowhere for most of the book. She really gets across what it is like to live with someone with this addiction. Alcohol alters the personality. Gardiner can be the life of the party, having fun with his kids and animals, thinking up surprises for his family. But when he's drunk, which gets to be more and more often, he becomes vicious, insulting and cruel. It causes two wives to leave him, no surprise. This personality change is really hard for children to understand; the alcoholic may say terrible things that the child will take at face value, and a lot of damage is done. I can remember at Daley'e age asking why was so-and-so being so mean, and my parents saying I should ignore it, it was the liquor talking. Gardiner goes through many of these periods and ends up alienating his children and stepchildren. Eventually he hits the bottom, and is convinced to go to AA by his daughter. Gardiner begins a long hard road to recovery, and you have to give him credit.

Daley as an adult got on my nerves, being a little too self-righteous and politically correct. I probably was the same way at her age, but I don't think it's worth hurting people's feelings when they mean well and don't know any better. She makes an enormous sacrifice for her father, but she doesn't have much choice. Her brother completely abdicates any responsibility for taking care of him, her mother is dead, her stepmother is in the middle of divorcing him. She does her father a world of good, but you're hoping she won't throw her whole life away. She doesn't seem to act like a martyr,which nobody likes.

There is one thing that really bothered me. The author took a very minor character near the end of the book and revealed she had bipolar disorder. She referred to her as "cuckoo crazy", had her make a fool of herself in the center of town, and hinted at periodic stays in mental hospitals where they pumped her full of lithium, strapped her down, and gave her shock treatments. I was appalled at the insensitivity and ignorance with which this was treated. If the author knows so little, or has so little compassion for, an illness every bit as serious as alcoholism, she should have left this out. The story didn't need it. She's only about fifty years behind the times on this. It gives many people a wrong impression and increases the stigma that makes people afraid to get help in the first place. The same thing when the visiting psychiatrist is telling Gardiner funny stories about his patients.
None of these things are funny to people who suffer from them, or have family members who do.

The book lives up to Lily King's other works, which I would recommend. I thought Gardiner was going to be the villain of the piece, but I found myself sympathizing with him.

It takes a certain emotionally painful honesty in a novel to make me cry. This one did. King is as gifted a novelist as I have encountered in some time...her depiction of the sort of pain mixed up with love that is true of all families is spot on. I adored this story. I will be reading more from Lily King.

I picked up this book at the library without ever hearing anything about it or even knowing the author. After reading the jacket, it sounded interesting. Well, I couldn't put it down. Although, a little dark at times, it provided a lot of insight about what it would be like to grow up with an alcoholic father from the point of view of a child, a college student and a young adult. As a matter of fact, I am now looking to purchase other books by King.

This is a fabulous book from a strong and courageous writer. Lily King loves the English language and it shows... the phrases, the descriptions are rewarding for anyone who bristles at the sloppy, lazy writing out there these days...

For a completely engrossing experience, a terrific read for summer vacation, and a book you cannot put down, get Father of the Rain now.

This novel rivals Jonathan Franzen's Freedom as the best book I read in 2010. Lily King is brilliant, in my view. Her characters are hopelessly flawed, and she brings unusual insight and sensitivity to the complicated, haunting illness that is alcoholism. I cannot wait to read more of her gorgeous writing.

I grew up with these people. Ms King has written hauntingly in a way that is revelatory, humorous, tragic, and achingly human. The protagonist's numbness as she faces a priveledged yet painful upbringing is heartwrenching. One wants to scream Munch like into the night: We are with you. Her prose are exceedingly impressive.

This book is a great read. The character development is excellent and the story is engrossing. I found myself laughing, crying, and thinking about the characters long after the book was finished. Highly recommended.