“Told loosely over four decades, Father of the Rain is the story of Daley and her complicated and sometimes painful relationship with her alcoholic father. We are taken up with each step of her path as she moves from recognition of the problem to anger and defiance, to wanting to be the savior and, finally, acceptance. All of this is masterfully woven in the beautiful prose of author Lily King.”
— Kathleen Costello, Maria's Bookshop, Durango, CO
"Haunting, incisive . . . King is brilliant." -- Elle
An absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line." --Washington Post
"Spellbinding . . . You won't be able to stop reading this book, but when you do finally finish the last delicious page and look up, you will see families in a clearer and more forgiving way." --Vanity Fair
When eleven-year-old Daley Amory's mother leaves her father, Daley is thrust into a chaotic adult world of competition, indulgence, and manipulation. Unable to place her allegiance, she gently toes the thickening line between her parents' incompatible worlds: the increasingly liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But without her mother there to keep him in line, Daley's father's basest impulses and quick rage are unleashed, and Daley finds herself having to choose her own survival over the father she still deeply loves.
As she grows into adulthood, Daley retreats from the New England country-club culture that nourished her father's fears and addictions, and attempts to live outside of his influence. Until he hits rock bottom. Faced with the chance to free her father from sixty years worth of dependency, Daley must decide whether repairing their badly broken relationship is worth the risk of losing not only her professional dreams, but the love of her life, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley's father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.
A provocative and masterfully told story of one woman's life-long, primal loyalty to her father, Father of the Rain is a spellbinding journey into the emotional complexities, mercurial contours, and magnetic pull of families.