Father of the Rain

Library Journal: This powerful family study from King (The English Teacher) begins in the 1970s, when 11-year-old Daley endures the cruel and wildly sexualized behavior of her boorish, alcoholic father while trying to protect her mother. Daley has learned early how to walk the tightrope of misery that stretches between her battling divorcing parents. Fast-forward to Daley as a 29-year-old adult on the brink of living her dream: a professorship at Berkeley and a life with her beloved Jonathan. When her brother calls her home, expecting her to care for her father, who is drowning in the bottle when his second marriage implodes, Daley is faced with impossible choices: save herself or stay with her father while he settles into his shaky sobriety. VERDICT Daley is so beautifully portrayed that readers will clench their fists and protectively rail against her actions, only to be taken breathtakingly by surprise when her complicated, determined strength to do the right thing for both her father and herself replaces her losses with a wondrous resolution. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10.]?Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI