Daddy: Stories

I love this woman's writing, her tone, and how she folds her character's emotions into the stories. Highly recommended along with her novels, The Guest, and The Girls

Turned me around on Emma Cline, and made me really excited to revisit The Girls and watch for what she does next.

Emma Cline has potential, once she's got some more life experience that will help to broaden her story themes. For now, her works reflect her youthfulness and a need to use writing as a method for processing her own experiences and those of her family members and friends. Give her ten years to work out her angels and demons and to mature, and she'll be a fine author.

Emma Cline's sensitivity to nuance and small moments of beauty guide her sentences into perfectly constructed stories, revealing characters whose daily lives develop in disquiet and ache. Love is always somewhere else. Pain is just beneath the skin. And Cline has the vision and talent to ensure that her characters' perspectives are always singular and profound.

I'm struggling with this book and whether or not to keep it. It feels like a book that I'm supposed to like and appreciate but I just can't get into any of the stories...the writing is good. There is no question about that. I'm just not enjoying the reading.

Each story has unique characters. All are dysfunctional. We don’t realize it when we are young (but) we were watching our parents grow-up, and some never do.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I could empathize with most characters, flawed as they are. It felt to me almost like a modern, American, Margaret Atwood. Just brief, beautiful, snapshots of human experience with a somewhat common theme.

Wonderful sophomore work. Each story has characters so deeply written you won’t want them to end. You will breeze straight through this one, the short story form is addictive.

Excellent collection. Much better than her debut novel.Had I read that first I probably would have given this a pass.

I bought this book without knowing anything about it, nor having read the authors other work.At first, I didnt realise it was short stories and presumed the characters overlapped eventually. But then it became apparent these are stand alone stories, mostly about human relationships and difficulties.Some were good, had some depth, well written, and were enjoyable. However, some were pretty dull and occasionally felt pointless, they didn't start or end anywhere. It was like starting a film 30 mins in and leaving before the end. Just snippets of the characters lives are shown, and, a lot of the time, the characters didn't or couldn't grow.However, I finished the book as the writing was good, fluid and easy to read. But I don't think it lived up to it's potential.

Daddy is a collection of ten short stories, the first collection from Emma Cline. Don’t by fooled by their length, as they pack much more punch than their length suggests. These are quite dark, looking at power imbalances with a lot of things left unsaid. It’s up to the reader to fill in the blanks.The stories aren’t necessarily happy, although their settings may suggest celebration. One is set at Christmas; another reflects on childhood. Likewise, the characters may appear to be functioning well but they are hiding at least one thing. In one story, a ghost-writer is running from a major scandal that has caused him to change career and ended his relationship. He’s trying his best to hide his past, but ultimately screws up. Another story is about a man whose own career is fading, yet uses his son’s movie premiere to hit up an old friend for money. These characters aren’t always likeable, particularly the men. Some of the female main characters take advantage of the power imbalance with men to try to get ahead. Yet each comes close to failure or humiliation.Cline writes very well, creating a dark, brooding atmosphere that lurks under sunny California skies. The stories all have an air of mystery, with characters’ past misbehaviours rarely revealed in full. Perhaps this is due to the point of view, some of the characters haven’t realised the problems with their past behaviours (and likely never will). It’s up to the reader to guess at the misdemeanour and the severity through the hints and reactions of the other characters.My favourites? ‘Son of Friedman’, about the washed-up producer taking advantage of his son’s movie premiere, reeked of desperation and bad decisions. ‘A/S/L’ is a story about a woman in not-quite-rehab, but what is she not quite rehabilitating from? When a celebrity chef comes to the facility, all eyes turn to him and she is desperate to get noticed. I read Daddy as one to two stories a day, just enough to enjoy the style without getting bogged down in the darker storylines.

Ms Cline is evidently a very good writer, however, most of the stories did not resonate with me. They presented a mood of the protagonist, little else. I was raised on OHenry, so where is the plot?

There is no doubting the skill of Emma Cline's descriptive writing. However, if you're expecting traditional short 'stories' then you may be disappointed. Only 1 or 2 of these come to anything like a conclusion. I enjoyed The Girls and if you just want to marvel at the prose then go ahead but the selections here read more like exercises in style rather than completed tales.