Father of the Rain (Center Point Platinum Reader's Circle (Large Print))

Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2010: There's an emotional heft to Father of the Rain that comes not in the form of high drama, but in the feel of its characters. Daley Amory is an acute and attentive witness to her parents' divorce, which coincides with the larger dissolution of Nixon's presidency--itself a particularly appropriate historical counterpoint for a novel that explores how fiercely parents and children can polarize. Daley's father, Gardiner, is a jovial but capricious blue-blood New Englander, an alcoholic whose behavior is increasingly erratic and punishing to the point that Daley finally breaks away--in spite of how much she loves him--for much of her adult life. She is resilient, a woman you can respect but also challenge, and her love is (ultimately, amazingly) uncomplicated and true. The award-winning author of two previous novels, Lily King has long been admired for her deft, graceful characterization, and in no novel is this more evident than Father of the Rain. She takes on difficult characters but never vilifies them, choosing instead to seek out the feelings they shield, raise them up, and set them free. --Anne Bartholomew

Lily King grew up in Manchester, Massachusetts. Lily's first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Father of the Rain is her third novel. Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Award.