cover image The Day My Father Died: Women Share Their Stories of Love, Loss, and Life

The Day My Father Died: Women Share Their Stories of Love, Loss, and Life

. Running Press Book Publishers, $19.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-56138-189-0

Sentiment frames many of the portraits in this anthology of original nonfiction prose, poetry and book excerpts by 25 women writing about their fathers' deaths, edited by freelance writer Ajjan. Experience varies greatly in these deaths: several fathers struggle with such illnesses as cancer, Alzheimer's and lymphoma; others have fatal accidents, commit suicide and fade away from debilitating old age. All of these women struggle with self-respect; many must come to terms with their father's sins: substance abuse, abandonment and sexual abuse. For certain of these women, a father's death comes as a hidden blessing; the most poignant example is an excerpt from Sophia: Living and Loving by actress Sophia Loren (writing with A. E. Hotchner) about meeting her brother for the first time in her father's hospital room. One of the finest pieces is Candyce H. Stapen's ``Dad's Dying,'' an episodic account of the progression of her father's cancer placed against the dizzying complexities of her own life. More sincere than profound, this anthology nonetheless unites these daughters through grief. (May)