Sad Daddy's Girl

The father awful to others, but beloved by his daughter is a fairly standard literary trope. Why? Because it is often true.

Lily King is currently being celebrated for her new novel Father of the Rain. The setting is late 60s suburban Boston. The country was splitting apart as is the family of narrator Daley Armory. The 11-year-old will grow up to follow the words, if not necessarily actions of her liberal mum, but it is her alcoholic, regressive, often obnoxious-to-outsiders dad who always has her heart.

Making a Splash

Even investigative journalism is no match for the mysterious father-daughter bond. For example, in Huntersville, N.C., a father took to the lake to teach his teen daughter to swim. Both went into the water, but only one came out. Oddly enough, it was the teen daughter who was able to take care of herself until help arrived.

Did the father not know how to swim, and, if so, what was he planning to teach?

Did the daughter know how and try to set her father up?

Why did either or both of them think it would be a good idea to float a raft to the middle of the lake if one (the other one?) didn't know how to swim when they could have started on the shore?

And if this was not some sort of evil set up, what kind of father and teen daughter get along well enough to make this a likely scene?

The questions of dad and daughter unfold, but the answers of that particular relationship have most liekly swum away.