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Daughters of Saturn

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In Daughters of Saturn Patricia Reis explores various aspects of the father daughter relationship with a particular focus on the father's effect on a woman's creative life. Beginning with the charter myth of Saturn, the archetypal devouring and melancholic father, she explores the many ways tha Daughters of Saturn have come to name their experience and have used language to tell their stories. Through myth, dreams, and women's experiences, Reis creates a map marking a journey from life in the Belly of the Father through the First Gate of Awakening. She documents women's resistances and rebellions against the dominant culture of patriarchy, the treacherous Battlezone of Culture, and records the lives of four women writers -- Emily Dickinson, H.D., Sylvia Plath, and Anais Nin -- outlingin their struggles and strategies to live creative lives. Reis marks the trails into what she calls "The Wildzone," a place that has existence outside the law of the fathers: a woman-centered ground of being and knowing.

I discovered this book while writing my own "Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads" (Wiley) and so I came to it having already drawn many conclusions from my own research and interviews. Still, I found myself reading this and going "yes!!" at almost every point Reis makes, often hearing in her words an elegant echo of what women had been telling me in my own interviews. As a woman who had a conflicted relationship with her father -- and as an author who has interviewed many women -- I recommend this book. It's smart, it's insightful, and it's also well written.

Because I found the author's book "Through The Goddess" so helpful many years ago, I thought this work of hers would help me to understand my father a little more, as well as clarify our rather distant and awkward relationship. However, I have to admit that I am struggling quite a lot trying to get through "Daughters of Saturn". It feels very angry and judgmental. If I can just get through Part One, maybe the rest will provide clarity and understanding.