Daughter Mine
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Dan Shaper, bachelor, translator for the San Francisco courts, is a man who has worn the same raincoat for fifteen years, eats the same breakfast in the same coffeeshop every morning, occasionally sees a few long-time men friends and vaguely regrets a handful of former women lovers. In the sixties and seventies, Shaper was where the action was, (San Francisco, where else?) and joined in the festivities, if moderately. But that was a long time ago.
There are those who have drug flashbacks, even years after they've been using. Shaper has escaped those, thanks to his moderation. But into his relatively Spartan life now comes a flashback of another kind - a nineteen-year-old daughter whose existence he never suspected. Her mother was an overnight acquaintance whom with some effort he manages, barely, to recall. The daughter's name is Amanda, and her phone call sends Shaper's drab-gray existence into dazzling Technicolor.
Amanda arrives trailing a motley band of associates: a con man who explains his activities on his gypsy heritage, except that he may not have one; his blatantly seductive daughter; Amanda's boyfriend, D'Wayne, a streetsmart and (usually) genial black giant. The con man owns what he has named The Yerba Buena Foundation, dedicated to helping businessmen relieve stress; his daughter - well, she runs the place, D'Wayne is the house's security man. Others turn up, segueing from various areas of Shaper's life. Amanda, part typical teenager, part young receptacle of ancient wisdom, is currently employed as a "therapist" at the Foundation.
Shaper plunges into this personal mosh pit like a repentant sinner at a river baptism, the shock of his plunge awakening him to the realization that there's more in life than was dreamt of in his philosophy.
Gold has been blessing readers with his contemplation of the human condition for many years. In this novel his lovely humor and deep understanding illuminates how a man walking a barren highway may react when fate suddenly shoves him onto an unpaved, rutted dirt road.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Freewheeling in scope and unafraid of pathos, this tale of love, moral compromise, parenthood and regret in San Francisco focuses on Dan Shaper, a middle-aged courtroom translator whose life as a sloppy bachelor is disrupted by a visit from a daughter he didn't know he had. Amanda Torres, 19, is the product of a tryst Shaper has long forgotten, with Margaret Torres, a former bohemian drifter who's also now living in San Francisco. Together, mother and daughter place a familial stronghold on Shaper. Amanda almost immediately makes financial demands on him, which he is in no position to satisfy. If Shaper doesn't support his daughter, then her boyfriend D'Wayne will let her work with him at the Yerba Buena Foundation, a bordello masquerading as a psychiatric counseling center through which stereotypical San Franciscan fetishists parade. Although Shaper does not fit snugly into the role of "father" after so many years of freedom from family responsibility, he understands his role well enough to disapprove of D'Wayne and the foundation. Shaper's dislike of his daughter's choice of mate is classic, and would be more humorous if Gold didn't push it to the point of semicomic violence. Shaper must chose between allowing Amanda to make her own decisions and taking matters into his own hands, which will lead nowhere. The narrative rolls along at a comfortable pace, allowing plenty of room for characters' inner vacillations, recollections and other digressions. This pace often becomes a little too relaxed, and the novel comes to an anticlimactic and inconclusive end. But Gold's wry observations on life in California, supported by a realist's sense of detail, hold his book together.
