This Is My Daughter

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

Another sensitive examination of universal emotions in the hearts of affluent WASPs from Robinson, in a novel that depicts a second marriage imperiled by offspring from the first. When Emma Goodwin and Peter Chatfield fall in love in 1984, both are recently divorced and feeling guilty because they initiated the break-ups. Emma's ex-husband, Warren (the book's only crudely drawn portrait), is a manipulative brute who uses their three-year-old daughter, Tess, as a weapon; social-climbing Caroline Chatfield, devastated by Peter's departure, feels a vindictiveness toward him that only exacerbates seven-year-old Amanda's sullenness and rage. When Peter and Emma marry, it's clear that the stage is set for disaster, though the grim denouement takes eight years to arrive. As in her short fiction (Asking for Love, 1996, etc.), Robinson expertly delineates complex interactions among people, charting the ebb and flow of passions, the revision of opinions as her characters learn and mature. There are no villains (not even Warren), just fallible human beings whose mistakes sometimes have permanent consequences. Amanda's behavior worsens as she enters her teens, and Peter's misguided attempts to force her to be part of his new family only deepen her alienation; and well-intentioned Emma, rejected over and over again, finds her marriage battered by her inability to love her stepdaughter. This unhappy impasse is shattered by an automobile accident that shocks all the protagonists out of their frozen attitudes. Robinson's carefully honed techniques aren't quite as effective here as in her stories; instead of a few key epiphanies that illuminate a short text, she loads her full-length narrative with so many instances of the characters musing on their relationships and their feelings that the insights occasionally seem obvious and excessive. These flaws, though, are transcended in the moving final chapters, which show people we care about groping toward reconciliation and renewal. A thoughtful, tender tale by one of our finest exponents of traditional realistic fiction. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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 independent and braver still to engage.

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.

In this emotionally rich and evocatively detailed novel, Robinson (Summer Light, LJ 6/1/88) tells the story of a difficult second marriage. Emma is fiercely protective of her young daughter, Tess, while Peter is more detached from teenaged daughter Amanda, oblivious to her attitudes and activities. Put together, they form a household rife with tension. For although theirs is a world of spacious Manhattan apartments and summer houses, wealth does not insulate them from sorrow. Emma and Peter do their best for the girls, but Tess and Amanda have their own opinions about this new family, and it is their actions, as much as those of the grownups, that propel the novel forward. The book is beautifully written, with each burnished chapter exhibiting Robinson's understanding and compassion. Reminiscent of the novels of Sue Miller, this look at the interior landscape of a marriage deserves a place in all public libraries.
-?Yvette Weller Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.