This is My Daughter: A Novel [Paperback]

Roxana Robinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 1999

When Peter and Emma, both refugees from failed first marriages, decide to create a new life together, they do so with an optimistic commitment to creating a union -- and forging a new family from two existing ones -- bonded by love and trust. Their young daughters, however, are not partners in this new venture, but helpless participants. Like all children of divorce, the girls feel sorrow, loss, and a longing for their earlier lives. As the tensions and complexities grow steadily more powerful, This Is My Daughter moves inexorably to a stunning and emotional climax. Roxana Robinson, who has established a reputation as a perceptive chronicler of WASP family life, delivers a beautifully moving and compassionate account of a marriage in peril, proving once more that class and privilege provide no protection from the passion of opposing desires.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If divorce rips a family apart, can a second marriage mend the tear, piecing the remnants together into one big Brady Bunch quilt? Of course not. In This Is My Daughter, New Yorkers Peter Chatfield and Emma Kirkland learn this the hard way. Roxana Robinson--whose dissection of WASP mores in Asking for Love and Summer Light earned her comparisons to such white-shoe masters as John Cheever, Edith Wharton, and Henry James--is on familiar ground here, placing Peter and Emma within the gilded cocoon of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Recently divorced, socially superior, and smarting from subhuman ex-spouses, the two have much in common, not least the desire to marry again. Emma's daughter, Tess, warms to the idea immediately. But for Peter's sullen seven-year-old, this union signals a disaster rather than a fresh start: "Amanda could not be happy that her father was marrying Emma.... She was already, at seven, in mourning for her life, for her past and happy life, that other world."

Over the next eight years, Amanda's inability to deal with her father's remarriage, which the adults dismiss as mere adolescent angst, becomes a sizable thorn in the family's side. Despite all of Peter and Emma's best-laid plans--private schools, a picture-perfect summer home in New England, tennis clinics, invites to exclusive parties--Amanda grows increasingly alienated, and with one desperate act she forces the family to peel back their moneyed exterior and examine the heart of the matter. In This Is My Daughter, Robinson has created a skillful and sensitive portrayal of divorce and its post-nuclear-family fallout. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The terrain of upper-middle-class WASP families and the country of divorce are explored with perceptive candor in Robinson's powerful and affecting novel. Emma Goodwin and Peter Chatfield move in the socially elite circles of Manhattan's Upper East Side. When they marry after having divorced their first spouses, each brings a daughter to the new union. Three-year-old Tessa, Emma's child, is adorable and secure, but seven-year-old Amanda, Peter's already difficult daughter, proves sullen, and rebellious. Although she can't admit it to herself, Emma favors and nurtures her own daughter, while Peter, not recognizing Amanda's fear and misery, is annoyed by her continuing defiance. Through insidious undercurrents of resentment and periodic confrontations, Amanda's self-confidence is eventually destroyed. Robinson is particularly adept at conveying the nuances of children's thoughts and behavior, and she sees clearly that they are the real victims of divorce, though readers feel equal sympathy for all players in the drama. Robinson renders the girls' bickering, Amanda's scornful negativity, and the guilt and recrimination that erode the Chatfields' marriage with emotional authority. These scenes occur against the convincingly textured background of private clubs and summer homes, the snobbish pride in blood over money and, sometimes, the cultivation of stingy economy over unseemly display. The last third of the book is hypnotic and achingly real, all too imaginable for parents who will recognize that unconscious acts have their tragic consequences. The author of two collections of short stories, the novel Summer Light and a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, Robinson writes lucid and graceful prose that shines with compassion and wisdom about human frailty.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction ed edition (September 16, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684864363
• ISBN-13: 978-0684864365
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,395,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The darkest child, February 21, 2000

By 

lb136 "lb136" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: This is My Daughter: A Novel (Paperback)

When you finish Roxana Robinson's brilliant novel you're likely to have its brilliantly drawn characters take curtain calls in your head. And taking the last bow is certain to be Amanda Chatfield, 15-year-old dark child of divorce. Forced to spend a hideous summer vacation away from the indifferent administrations of her social climbing mother Caroline in the legal custody of her ineffectual father Peter, but actually under the rule of her stepmother Emma (the Jane Austen reference cannot be unintentional), who favors her own 11-year-old sunny child, Tess, the sullen Amanda rebels in the most hideous, if expectable, ways.

And yet in this unsparing book, which evokes Salinger and Wharton as much as Austen, with its multiple points of view and its tense changes, with its brilliant evocations of New York locales, especially its interiors, you'll end up rooting for Amanda. There isn't much choice: Caroline's selfishness is over the top, Peter stumbles and bumbles along, making big issues out of tennis lessons, while the doormatty Emma, who can't even get Tess's live-in nanny to address her properly, compensates for her personal ineffectiveness by creating petty rules that she expects Amanda to adhere to, and who of course does not.

Robinson writes brilliantly: her prose is sharp, unsparing, and to the point. Her characters are well drawn. Unlike most of us, who as grownups look back on our schooldays in a golden haze of nostalgia, Robinson hasn't forgotten the hellishness of adolescence (for Amanda school is something simply to be waited out), and she shows what happens to adults who have forgotten. It's a great novel.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brava, Roxana Robinson!, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: This is My Daughter: A Novel (Paperback)

I have never read such a subtle and insightful book about divorce and remarriage. Ms. Robinson has carefully and realistically described the almost upper class Park Avenue New Yorkers who, though well educated and savvy, make the ordinary mistakes we all make when relationships go awry. What makes this novel so special is the author's shifting of perspective, so that by the time the book ends you have had insight into different characters and their view of the divorce/remarriage. What a heartbreaking scene when Peter, in an effort to be kind, takes his ex-wife out to dinner (to Lutece!) to tell her he is getting married again. His wife, who had been fairly unsympathetic until then, is mistakenly sweet and flirtatious, and is then stunned into a shocking public display of tears! And the confused and resentful behavior of the daughters is all too realistic.

I grew attached to all of these flawed characters, including the sullen teenager and her stepmother, who couldn't help but show favoritism. Roxana Robinson knows her New York milieu and understands blended families well. Read this book! And if you are in a Book Club this would be a great choice, with lots to discuss.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars - I would definitely take a chance on this book.., December 18, 2001

By 

secondwivesclub.com reviews (www.secondwivesclub.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Is My Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

I waited a couple of weeks after reading this book to write the review. My opinion was changing daily and I decided that I needed to fully digest it before I could discuss it. In some ways, this book is so different from my own life and in some ways mirrors it too closely.

The book follows the journey of a couple, Peter and Emma, as they try to make a "family" when no one else seems to want it. The exes are hostile to say the least. Reading passages about how Peter's ex-wife acted reminded me of posts on the second wives club website. In addition, his daughter was truly PAS'd and harbored enough anger and resentment for three children. Though Emma's ex-husband was also difficult, he faded in and out of the picture, like many ex-husbands do.

I realized partially through the book that this couple really doesn't communicate, doesn't understand each other, and really isn't happy. When a tragedy threatens the relationship, I had a hard time understanding how they had stayed together as long as they did. Then I realized something very important...the entire book could be excerpts from the website. I am so blessed to be in a great relationship with a wonderful stepson. My big issue is the ex-wife. Many of those who are second wives are not nearly as lucky. Many have problems with almost every facet of their lives. The feeling must be overwhelming, like it was to Peter and Emma.

Though I couldn't directly relate to the book, I couldn't put it down (just like I can't log off sometimes). It was the "can't stop looking at the car accident" syndrome. If nothing else, it might make second wives feel like they are not alone. They can see how these fictional characters made choices, good or bad, and then had to live with them.

I would definitely take a chance on this book. It's a quick read and you can probably finish it in a few sessions. The only thing I really didn't like was the detail that the author would sometimes inject in the middle of an important part of the book. I could not care less what the trees and buildings looked like, I wanted to see what happened in the relationship. Luckily, she didn't do that too often and I could go back to watching Peter and Emma struggle through their days.

MommyQ - SWC.COM Member