This Is My Daughter - Hardcover

Robinson, Roxana

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679439013 ISBN 13: 9780679439011

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1998

Synopsis

Tells the story of two upper-class people struggling to form a new family

About this title

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 luminaries 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 sensitive and skilful portrayal of divorce and its post-nuclear-family fallout.

Review

Colleen Kelly Warren"St. Louis Post-Dispatch"A clear-eyed, poignant story of a family in crisis. Linnea Lannon"San Jose Mercury News"Glitters not with rich trappings, but rich with understanding of its people. Vanessa V. Friedman"Entertainment Weekly"A portrait of parenthood, with all its wild loves and anguished fears...compulsively readable. Susie Linfield"Los Angeles Times"With almost perfect pitch, Robinson captures the clash of worldviews between adults and young children. Adam Begley"People Magazine"Robinson writes with slow-motion precision. She registers every last gesture and nuance and gets it all right. Francine Prose"Newsday"Robinson's impressive new novel grows on you...so slowly you discover how truly ambitious and tough its intentions are. Bath Brophy"USA Today"Compelling...after reading this exceptional novel, it may be hard to think about remarriage without this book coming to mind. Diana Postlethwaite"The New York Times Book Review"Often compared to John Cheerer...but Robinson's latest novel made me think of an earlier literary forebear, Henry James. Carol Ratelle Leach"Minneapolis Star Tribune"Nearly perfect prose...there isn't an awkward phrase or false note in the entire work, Robinson depicts this family's struggle to survive with unerring intelligence and grace. Susan Goodman"The Washington Post Book World"Robinson's strength as a novelist rests in her ability to create the texture of life...."This Is My Daughter" shows us that it is -- as Robinson writes -- brave to be independentand braver still to engage. Susan Goodman"The Washington Post Book World"Robinson's strength as a novelist rests in her ability to create the texture of life...."This Is My Daughter" shows us that it is -- as Robinson writes -- brave to be independentand braver still to engage. Carol Ratelle Leach"Minneapolis Star Tribune"Nearly perfect prose...there isn't an awkward phrase or false note in the entire work, Robinson depicts this family's struggle to survive with unerring intelligence and grace. Diana Postlethwaite"The New York Times Book Review"Often compared to John Cheerer...but Robinson's latest novel made me think of an earlier literary forebear, Henry James. Bath Brophy"USA Today"Compelling...after reading this exceptional novel, it may be hard to think about remarriage without this book coming to mind. Francine Prose"Newsday"Robinson's impressive new novel grows on you...so slowly you discover how truly ambitious and tough its intentions are. Adam Begley"People Magazine"Robinson writes with slow-motion precision. She registers every last gesture and nuance and gets it all right. Susie Linfield"Los Angeles Times"With almost perfect pitch, Robinson captures the clash of worldviews between adults and young children. Vanessa V. Friedman"Entertainment Weekly"A portrait of parenthood, with all its wild loves and anguished fears...compulsively readable. Linnea Lannon"San Jose Mercury News"Glitters not with rich trappings, but rich with understanding of its people. Colleen Kelly Warren"St. Louis Post-Dispatch"A clear-eyed, poignant story of a family in crisis.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679439013
• ISBN 13: 9780679439011
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 404