Her mother had walked out when she was six, and now Margaret must reconcile her needs as a woman with the demands of her religious father, in an exploration of filial love.
Having read all of Gail Godwin's novels, I would rank this and Evensong as her best effort in capturing the essence of a half dozen characters - characters we come to care about and identify with, flawed though they may be. The novel is a celebration of brokenness and of nurture within the community of Christian believers in Godwin's ficticious town. Unlike one's experience with formula fiction (and Christian formula fiction...
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A wonderful narrative story, told from the point of view of Margaret, who is the precocious and intellectual daughter of an Episcopalian minister. The story is intertwined with issues of a deeper spiritual nature, but there's nothing "preachy" about it -- just the true soul-searching of a young woman sifting through the stories of her past and the beliefs she was raised with to find her own place in the world.This story hinges...
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I loved this book. I read it as a library book, but now will buy it! As I said in the title, she manages to cover it all, all the questions/quests of life, and does so in an authentic, Christian way--and in an engaging way! Rather a cross between John Updike, John Irving, and Susan Howatch! As a clergyman, I will recommend this for "my" congregation's book club. Amen!
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I first read FMD ten years ago when I was a young mother. I found it hard to read then, with the abandonment of a child so intimately described, but was glad I pressed through to the wonderful end. Last month, I read Evensong and went back to read FMD and found it even more wonderful, the second time around. It is so seldom these days that such a kindly book comes along that handles tough themes with tenderness and grace...
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I've just finished "Father Melancholy's Daughter, and it leaves me hungry to find and read everything else its talented author, Gail Godwin, has written. Margaret Gower is the product of an unusual single-parent household. Her mother, Ruth, left town with an old friend, Madelyn Farley, abondoning six-year-old Margaret and Margaret's father, an Episcopal priest prone to bouts of clinical depression. "Father Melancholy's...
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