A complex father/daughter relationship is at the heart of this novel, brought to life with really gorgeous prose. After all the motherhood books we’ve been seeing lately, this was a fresh take on the emotional, sometimes toxic ties we have with our parents.

Throw a wicked stepmother in the mix and you have yourself a Grimms fairytale - all the micro-tragedies included! But this is a character driven novel, one with underlying sadness playing out through its pages as a daughter desperately tries to seek her fathers love and attention. Being his confidant under these circumstances isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but I felt acutely her desire to take anything she could get, even at the expense of her own sanity.

Thoroughly enjoyed, and eagerly seeking Dey’s other work! Definitely recommend for darker lit-fic lovers!

Claudia Dey absolutely has done it again. Literary fiction about unhinged and unhealthy family dynamics at its finest.

Immediately drawn into this complicated father/daughter and family dynamic. The voice is so internal - and at times, striking, unsettling: "I do not know who was the parasite, who was the host." "We were infected by loneliness." The metafictional moments too - "I listened to Paul read from his novel, Daughter." I look forward to reading more from this author.

I started this several times but unfortunately I just couldn't get into it and ultimately did not finish it.

𝙄 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚, 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙩. 𝘽𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙋𝙖𝙪𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚, 𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙢𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙.

I am late in reviewing this novel, due to health issues (mostly an arm injury and vertigo that comes and goes) but I am so happy finally be writing this, because this story sucked me in. The manipulations of love are many in this searing novel about a parasitic relationship between a father and daughter. Mona Dean’s father Paul is a writer, but only famous for one of his novels that became a bestseller. His success as a dad and husband is less than stellar. Long ago he abandoned Mona, her older sister Juliet, and their mother Natasha for Cherry. He started a new family, one with wealth and comfort. He is a black hole of need, reckless with other people, incapable of loving one woman alone, racked with fears he may never write again and pulling his powerless daughter into his orbit, his confidante, his audience and his co-conspirator. He thrives on excitement, not stale and steady love. Her loyalty to him eclipses her relationship with her partner Wes and destroys the bond she has with her younger half-sister Eva who sees her part in their father’s infidelity as a poisonous betrayal. The truth is, his affair and her shameful role in it inspires her artistic creativity, just as love affairs fire his blood and work , but the fallout brings Mona crashing down, threatening the premiere of her own show. She is an actress and playwright whose famous father’s name helps sell tickets, but it’s his love she hungers after.

It isn’t the first time Paul has set her up, cut her out. Paul’s gift of charming people has been a tool for his writing, serving him well in fulfilling his desires, particularly where women are concerned. He uses people up, gets what he needs and moves on. She is shocked when the truth is out and he lets her take the fall, worse, he denies her his fatherly affection and attention. Their intimacies are of no use to Paul now that he has come clean to his wife, Cherry. Once again, her father’s light is no longer upon her, and it is eating her alive. While sneaking around with his latest conquest and needing Mona’s focus so badly to guide and support him, Paul’s presence and attentions were vital to her. They were like one person, tangled in need. That he could just throw her to the wolves to save himself, leaving her lost and alone is damaging. Cherry blames her more than Paul for his infidelity, even though it began before he started confiding in Mona, an easy escape to confronting her husband’s weak character.

The women are always to blame, it is never his fault. Before it was Mona, her sister and mother who held him back, kept him from his fame- weights to be shaken off. Then it’s Cherry’s coldness that pushes him into another’s arms. It’s like a circle, Mona and her sister Juliet are expected to prove their worthiness to gain entrance back into their father’s life and their half-sister Eva’s good graces. Juliet and Mona’s reactions are wildly different, and Mona is still eating any crumbs of love her father drops, so desperate to be made useful. But in his world, Paul plays at being King or God to his women, weighing and measuring loyalty, how and when they are worth his time, while giving nothing of himself.

There are head games galore, dysfunctional family dynamics and we are with Mona as she wakes up and becomes more than Paul’s sullen daughter. He has revised their history, controlled the narrative leaving her questioning her worth, her very identity. He is an expert at controlling emotions, playing at being the victim and avoiding the damaged women he leaves in his wake. Who is she when she isn’t Paul’s character, because really that’s all every woman in his life is. There is a formula to his relationships, he needs drama, he turns the families against each other to feel important. It is maddening the abuse he dishes out with his mind games, what a wreck of a man. Mona will know a Paul beyond the image he promotes, maybe he isn’t the gifted, tormented writer he plays at being. This is an intelligent work, and I loved how it ended, a part of my favorite line is about ‘a daughter auditioning for her father’s love’, that burns in my mind. It is heartbreaking and yet believable because such relationships play out every day. This is an author who understands the power people abuse in love of all kinds. Wow!

Yes read it!

Published: September 12, 2023

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Mona Dean is a playwright/actress whose childhood was marred by her father’s infidelity and the subsequent addition of Cherry, a wicked stepmother, to her life. Her father, Paul, is a famous novelist whose star is on the decline. When Paul confides in Mona about a new affair, she finds herself sucked back into a parasitic bid for his mercurial attention.

Complicated mother-daughter relationships are PLAYED OUT in contemporary lit fic! Give me more daddy issues!! I’m joking, I’m joking, I just really liked the dynamics this book explored. Daughter is devilishly good and completely unsparing. Each character, even the most minor role, was so expertly drawn that I could simultaneously feel great empathy and great disdain towards each of them. I particularly loved the ambiguity with which each action was handled, and how Dey avoided trite moralizing at points where other authors might have been compelled to do so. My one major complaint preventing this from being an easy 5 star read was the organization. The timeline was at times confusing to me, and I found the switches between perspective and time period difficult with no markings in the text. Still, Daughter was a striking 4 out of 5 strongly-worded emails!

Mona is an actress, playwright and daughter to a famous man. Her relationship with her father is very complicated, as he is a complicated and deeply flawed man. His actions has ruined and complicated the life of Mona, her sister Juliet, their half sister Eva, their mothers, and the women he has been unfaithful with over the years. He pulls Mona into his dramas, and further complicates her relationship with a stepmother who resented her from the beginning, and tarnishes a relationship with a half sister she has always treated as a full sister. It is only when the deep loss finds her, does she begin to understand and separate healthy unconditional love, and the absent conditional love her father has always practiced.

This was so beautifully written and told. Every character was so dynamic, and human that the reading experience felt so real. I hated characters but ultimately understood and empathized with them. Mona was such a strong character to base the story's point of view. I loved the story telling and the exploration of complex family relationships, loss, and identity.

Gloom and a sense of peril hangs over this intense novel, redolent of both Hemingway and Lear. Fathers, daughters, wicked stepmothers also lend a fairytale dimension but this is scarcely a happy tale, even if there’s a happyish outcome for the narrator. Nevertheless, for all its blame and sin, I found it compelling, if stifling. Will it ever end or will the characters go round and round for ever? There are familiar tragedies at work here, and archetypes. In its own, odd way, the book is fascinating.

A fascinating novel about a daughter longing to be loved by her narcissistic and charismatic father.
She is an artist in her own right a a playwright and actor, but needs to figure out real love.
An excellent read!

DAUGHTER is a lovely novel that I would recommend for fans of quiet literary fiction. The narrative is driven by character rather than plot; in particular we follow Mona and her relationship with her father, which has caused various dramatic fractures. Paul is troublesome - not all that likable - but then again, he doesn't need to be. The characters are realistic, not cardboard cutouts. I especially enjoyed the story once Mona had her baby. The emotions rise to the surface, and the descriptions are beautiful.

Daughter tells the story of playwright, Mona Dean. Mona is the daughter of a famous novelist named Paul. Mona desperately seeks her father's attention and approval even though he's incredibly self-centered. Paul’s past infidelity destroyed Mona's childhood, setting her in opposition to a cold, cruel stepmother who, though equally damaged, disdains her for being broken.

Just as Mona is settling into her life as an adult and fledgling artist, he begins a new affair and takes her into his confidence. Mona delights--painfully, parasitically--in his attention. When he inevitably confesses his infidelity to his wife, Mona is cast as the agent of disruption, punished for her father's crimes, and ejected from the family. Mona's tenuous stability is then thrown into chaos. Only when she suffers an invaluable loss far deeper and more defining than family entanglements can she begin supplanting absent love with real love. Pushed to the precipice, she must decide how she wants to live, what she most needs to say, and the risks she will take to say it.

Daughter is a poignant story centered around a father and daughter's emotionally codependent relationship. The story is raw and unflinching. Claudia Dey’s writing is just beautiful, and full of powerful prose. This phenomenal story is one that I will not forget anytime soon and I highly recommend it to all literary fiction readers!

Daughter by Claudia Dey was published on September 12, so it is available now. Many thanks to Netgalley, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the gifted copy!

Claudia Dey’s novel Daughter explores the toxic relationship between a famous author father, Paul and his playwright daughter, Mona Dean. Years earlier, Paul a serial adulterer, abandoned his marriage to Natasha. Their daughters, Mona (11) and Juliet arguably suffered the most from the divorce. Paul subsequently remarried Cherry, a wealthy woman who has two sons. This marriage has lasted 20 years, and Paul and Cherry had a daughter together, Eva. This is not a ‘blended’ family; this is a tiered structure with Juliet and Mona occupying the lower rung. It’s clear that Cherry doesn’t like her step-daughters and during the course of the novel we learn of the dreadful things she did. All tolerated by Paul.

When the novel opens, Paul has been in an affair for over two years with his publicist, Lee. She’s not his usual type, but Lee worships Paul, and Paul feeds on worship. During the affair, Paul chooses Mona as his confidante, and the affair with Lee pulls Mona, as a facilitator, confidante, and partner-in-deceit, back into Paul’s life. Put another way, he stops ignoring his daughter and puts her to use:

For Lee, we shopped for gold. I delivered gifts to her apartment building. With every secret act, we increased our closeness until we fused. I could not stand the prospect of slipping back into that angry grey world of before with no hidden current of electricity between us. When Paul was with Lee, I was loved by my father. Without Paul’s love, I was powerless. I had no gravitational pull.

Of course it’s easy for the reader to see that Mona mistakes ‘attention’ (and I’m using the word loosely) for love. Paul is so consumed with self-love, there’s no ardor for anyone else.

This could be an awkward situation but there’s no love lost between Mona and Cherry. Nonetheless, it is an explosive situation–especially since Paul confesses to Cherry and subsequently tells of Mona’s involvement and Mona’s many anti-Cherry opinions.

I do not know who was the parasite and who was the host. By then Paul and I were indistinguishable, locked by mutual need. The night he confessed his affair with Lee to Cherry was the night everything came apart for my father and me.

The plot of Daughter is fascinating. Why on earth would a man in his late 60s decide to use his adult daughter as a confidante of his latest affair? Why would the adult daughter tolerate this position? Mona, sadly, has never recovered from the trauma of being abandoned by her father. It would have been bad enough if Paul had just moved on from Natasha, but his daughters’ lives with their stepmother kept the wound open. What’s so fascinating here is the way Paul steps away from each toilet explosion that he creates. Cherry is the monster in Mona’s eyes– not Paul or his limp/twisted role as father. Similarly when Paul confesses on Cherry, it’s Mona that takes the flak.

Paul told Cherry every complaint, every slight I had divulged to him, every accumulated hurt.

And Cherry, of course “relayed them to Eva.” Cherry “had to keep the household together,” so Mona is the “traitor not Paul.”

Paul is a slippery character who knows well how to step away from the wrath. After the confession, time after time Mona is drawn back into her father’s sordid web. Everyone in the ‘family’ starts writing letters and emails of recrimination: Cherry’s sons, Eva, Juliet, Mona, and Paul stirs the pot. Then there are the innocent bystanders to the drama: Mona’s husband Wes and Mona’s friend, Ari who are powerless to stop the daddy magnet.
There are many sections in which the writing style is rather flat and uniform–perhaps this was deliberate–to blunt the high emotions and actions of the characters, The style occasionally drove me crazy, and I was also frustrated by Mona. I wanted to say “Stop! You need to read The Games People Play,”

Review copy.

Okay- I'll be the odd one out. This is an exhausting stream of consciousness broken up by bits and bobs that's all about Mona and her father Paul. Paul wrote one book, spent years ignoring and using various women, including his daughter, and generally being a not very nice person. Mona's got issues, lots of issues. This is the latest entry in the new genre of Unhappy privileged young women and while it may appeal to some, I found the writing just....t0o. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A pass from me (I DNF) but I suspect that others will enjoy it.

Tense brilliant writing a story now of a father and daughter their relationship almost claustrophobic at times.Claudia Dalys literary writing brings the characters their emotionally fraught interactions alive.Will be recommending #netgalley#fsg

The plot is: a family is dysfunctional. Just like yours!

The more important part: Dey writes in a style that is often attempted and much more rarely successful: a hazy, near stream of consciousness, packed with metaphor hypnotic dreamscape that is lovely even when harrowing. Her style is simultaneously revealing and concealing, letting you see the humanity and intentions of her characters, but only for a moment. Very beautiful.

"To be loved by your father is to be loved by God."

Wow. What an amazing book. It's about the relationship between a father and daughter, one that is very deep and intellectual and maybe a bit codependent. It starts with Mona being confided by Paul, her dad, that he is having an affair. During this time they become really close, and after Paul confessed to Cherry, his wife, Paul is forgiven and ghosts Mona. We witness Mona falling into a depression that may or may not be related to his father's mindlessness.

There is so much going on at all times and sometimes that annoys me, but with this book I didn't mind because the writing is exceptional. I couldn't get enough of it. Definitely worth checking out trigger warnings before starting it. Personally, I felt strongly related to Mona because I'm also really close to my dad and he has always treated me like an adult, making me feel that he listens and cares for anything I have to say. I could also relate to the codependency it can arise when the relationship becomes very intellectual and can be forgotten that we're not peers, we're father and daughter.

A masterpiece, in my opinion. I'm sure I will keep thinking about it for a while.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for the e-arc.

I love a dysfunction family story, so Daughter was right up my alley. I appreciated the different perspectives of the book and the exploration of the father-daughter relationship.

Dey takes her readers on a vulnerable exploration of a complicated father-daughter relationship.

Mona's father Paul has never been able to give her what she needs. Distracted by his once successful playwriting and his many women, he forces her to grapple with navigating a relationship with someone you otherwise wouldn't give your time to. It was a very intimate look at the long term effects of being forced to be your parent's confidant as they muddle their way through their life.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I appreciate the uniqueness of this story, while giving light to what is likely the experience of more people than we know. I could relate to having to be your parent's confidant as they navigate their relationship struggles. However, I was never sucked into this story. I took many days to get through, despite the fact that it is under 200 pages. I found it to be one long stream of consciousness without a breath, often getting bogged down in recounting emails sent from one person via another. I often found myself losing my place, and having to go back and re-read it.

Overall, I think is book is worthy of reading, especially if you have struggled with complicated parent-child relationships and can find a part of your story in Mona's.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NetGalley, and Claudia Dey for this ARC.

Tightly wound and twisted, this had me on the edge of my seat just because of the well crafted tense relationship between father and daughter. At times even hard to read in how aptly it describes the complicated-ness of families.

DAUGHTER is hands down one of the best books I've read so far this year.

It's a heartbreaking story about family---how difficult it is to escape certain ties, or to have other ties severed without being given the opportunity to mend them. At the center of the novel is a family of artists, a family that fractures. But the most fascinating relationship is that between Mona and her father Paul. She loathes Paul, yet cannot manage to escape him. Wants to be his best-friend and confidante, yet Paul is disagreeable, to say the least. At the same time, Mona is navigating various other traumas---some pages were harrowing, difficult to read. But as a whole, DAUGHTER shines.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!