Our Father [Mass Market Paperback]

Marilyn French (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 1995

"FRENCH'S MOST FOCUSED, DARING, AND POWERFUL NOVEL."
--New Woman
Famed presidential advisor Stephen Upton has suffered a stroke, and his four very different daughters gather in his perfectly appointed mansion outside Boston to await his death or recovery. Elizabeth, cold and calculating, fights hard for every success and pays a high price; beautiful Mary has always needed a man to support her tastes, but time is catching up with her; Alex can't remember her childhood and wants to know why; and Ronnie, illegitimate and proud, refuses to acknowledge her feelings for the man they all love and hate. In the weeks to come, they will learn one another's terrible secrets, and the astonishing truth about the life they might have shared....
Once again, Marilyn French has written an extraordinary novel of our times--a novel of family love and resentment, of sisterhood and fatherhood, of acceptance and rejection and the search for peace.
"SHOULD STRIKE A CHORD WITH EVERY WOMAN who is willing to think honestly about the place of femaleness in the world."
--Chicago Tribune

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Four half-sisters, each the offspring of a different mother, gather at their father's palatial Massachusetts home and at the hospital where he lies dying of a stroke. Multimillionaire Stephen Cabot Upton is a famous elder statesman, advisor to presidents and eminence grise. To his children, however, he has been a remote, terrifying figure, withholding love from each of them and deliberately keeping them apart. Indeed, the youngest, the illegitimate daughter of his chicana housekeeper, has never been acknowledged by her father. In the course of this overlong novel, the sisters first express jealous rage and bitter resentment toward each other, then slowly move to acceptance, sisterly solidarity and love, as each experiences an epiphany about her past and future life. Meanwhile, it comes to light that their father raped and molested each of them during their childhood. As usual, French ( Her Mother's Daughter ) uses plot to explore the condition of women, to deplore their dependency on men and to illustrate the strengths of female bonding. Though the novel's beginning is intriguing, the sisters' emotional and psychological awakenings are too minutely detailed; their endless ruminations, revelations and insights eventually verge on bathos. After a melodramatic, ludicrous scene in which they confront their mute but conscious father and "try" him for his crimes of incest, the tension seeps out like air from a leaky balloon.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The woman who gave us best sellers like Her Mother's Daughter ( LJ 10/15/87) here considers a father's influence, though the father at the center of this novel doesn't have much to say: rich, powerful Stephen Upton has been felled by a stroke. His four daughters--each born to a different mother--gather at the family mansion to confront the crisis.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st Ballantine Books Ed edition (May 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345384903
• ISBN-13: 978-0345384904
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,051,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Did Marilyn French REALLY write this?, August 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Our Father (Mass Market Paperback)

Formulaic, tedious and stereotyping. The subject was compelling and intense, but the way the story was written detracted heavily from what could have been a powerful novel. The characters were incredibly one dimensional and stereotypical. Their behavior time and again came as absolutely no surprise. Very disappointing, especially since the Women's Room, and Her Mother's Daughter were both such powerful and compelling books!

5.0 out of 5 stars BAD FATHER, February 8, 2001

By 

Mary Allen "Mary B Allen" (HARRISBURG, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Our Father (Mass Market Paperback)

In keeping with the tradition of her other novels, Marilyn French proves excellent in OUR FATHER. She presents an earnest look into the effects of childhood abuse in later life. This book scans the lives of four very different half-sisters who are each the victim of sexual abuse and it shows how each of the women copes with her past in her own unique way. OUR FATHER gives us a peak into the world of the powerful and the powerless, and sends us a chilling reminder that evil does exist. The most positive part of this book is that the victims get a chance to confront the abuser. The results of that encounter give us hope. Rape, incest and abuse are never pretty subjects; yet Ms. French writes about them with frankness and great understanding.