Customer Reviews

My Father, Dancing (Harvest Book)

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...overall, this collection left me disappointed -- not from any lack of talent on the part of the writer, but from the choices she made about the characters she portrayed in these stories. The only one that I enjoyed on all levels was the title story -- a touching depiction of a daughter dealing with the soon-to-come loss of her father, dying of cancer.

The rest of these stories focus on people I would avoid like the plague if I met them in real life. The characters are shallow, self-centered, obsessed with sex and status. It's no wonder that the people with whom they interact in these tales are sad and angry and generally disappointed in their lives. There are numerous examples of this -- I'll stick to commenting in detail on the story 'Ugliest faces'...

In this story, a young woman named Bridget, and undergraduate, is involved in a relationship with Ethan, a graduate student that she met while attending a class he was giving. On p.115, she shows that she has little self-esteem: 'Ethan's attention was irresetible to Bridget. She wasn't sure why she'd been chosen, but whatever Ethan thought he saw in her, she certainly wasn't going to give him any reason to amend his opinion.' Nice. She's so concerned about keeping him, about what he thinks of her, that whoever she REALLY is gets shoved aside in order to maintain the image that he has of her. This is a nice recipe for a doomed relationship. Ethan is no prize, either -- an unbridled ego on the loose, as evinced by this from p.117: (He tells Bridget) '"I can't imagin what your life was like before we met...God, who did you talk to?"' He also has a nice view of sex. Rather than being something meaningful and intimate that is to be shared and treasured by a partner, on p.128-9, his views are made known to us: 'As he'd said, sex was one way of discovering if you were compatible with someone, and if you're not, there's no use in prolonging things.'

'Mr. sweetly indecent' chronicles a young woman's one-night stand -- and resulting obsession -- with a man who couldn't care less about ever seeing her again. 'At the bottom of the lake' gives us a view of a young couple about to step into marriage -- this story has a few gentle moments, but, again, the male figure turns out to be insensitive and obsessed with physicality. 'Loose talk' finds a woman living with one man and pursuing a telephone-based relationship with a traveling musician. 'The trouble with Mr. Leopold' gives a very disturbing portrait of a father in whom we can see some troubling controlling tendencies lurking just under the surface. 'A day in the country' and 'Snowed in' involve teens and pre-teens discovering sex and romance -- the latter in particular involving some more unsavory characters in the form of teenage boys who are so sensitive as to view a porno video they find in front of the girls with whom they're spending the weekend, and commenting on it like they were watching a football game.

Broyard's writing talents are, as I mentioned above, certainly not lacking -- I just wish she would show them off on some more likable characters.

In response to an earlier review, this book speaks to men as well as to women. True, the coming of age awkwardness of the female main character reminds the reader of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. But that same sense of adolescent confusion has roots in the boy's classic tale, Catcher in the Rye. None of the stories are filler. Each one holds the same level of heart.

-Nathaniel (New York)

The eight stories in this anthology are poignant pieces of young women encountering the challenges that lie ahead in their lives. Most of the stories have the girl as the main character, and the father is a leading influence. You can read a sample from this collection online at the Ploughshares web site, a very reputable literary publication and the source through which I found this author. The story, "Mr. Sweetly Indecent," was selected as one of the best short stories of the year a few years ago by Best American Short Stories, a popular annual, and is my favorite piece in the anthology. I hope to see more writing of Ms. Broyard in the future.

A much less then enjoyable collection of stories. The type of material one expects from a student of the many writing programs around the continent. All of the stories feel incomplete and grounded in the idea of writing about something, but not having really experienced anything in a real life. It isn't that the author doesn't have the ability to construct a story, it's just that she doesn't have anything really meaniful to say. Most of the collection reminded me of the early Ann Beattie. I feel bad, I feel sad, or isn't life a bummer. The passivity of most of the women in this collection was also a real turn-off, in each story their helplessness sounds like a repeat of the past one. And this collection has the strangest group of Daddies around-cold, indifferent, almost always vague. It's interesting that three of the stories were winners of competitions when originally published. It just goes to show that a decent story in isolation does not a great collection make.

Eight tales of emotional upheaval, a coming to terms with oneself, from a woman's point of view. I recommend the first three stories, and the last. Staple the remaining pages together as disjointed, frustrating filler without much heart (a man's point of view). -stev

The author is a good fiction writer. But the cover is misleading. It's a collection of stories about insecure young women discovering relationships with men, with parents, with the world. Not a young woman's relationship with her father, as I was expecting from the cover. Too bad. Also, it is written for a teenage or twenty-something female audience.

Poignant semi-autobiographical account of life with Dad

From the title I thought this would be a book about the tender relationship between fathers and daughters. Instead, it's a collection of stories that have little to do with father-daughter relationships. A father is present in many of the stories, that's about it. There is little tenderness. The farther you get from the front of the book the farther you get from any sort of tenderness. It's a fast read (i read it in a day). Based on the title I was hoping it could be a book I could give to my father on my wedding day (next year). After reading it, I wouldn't even give it to a friend on her birthday.