The women in all the stories come from the same privileged position. But not everyone is fortunate enough to have a father dance her gently into adulthood. People have a completely different view of father.

Many have fathers who are abusive or absent, and these people may have difficulty recognizing the father figure Broyard presents. Broyard's book is clearly slanted toward the upper middle class, to professionals who are articulate and literary, influential and charming, and extremely complex. This is her world, and her view of father.

Broyard's themes in all her stories revolve around the complexity of men. We have to wonder if she presents the adult male in unreal proportions. Because she focuses on the father-daughter relationship, readers get the sense that men have a much greater impact than women on their daughters' sense of identity. This leads us to examine our views of...