My Father, Dancing - Hardcover

When your father's a noted literary critic--in this case, the late Anatole Broyard--and you entitle your debut collection My Father, Dancing, speculation on the autobiographical roots of your fiction seems not merely inevitable but self-sought. Thus it is with Bliss Broyard's eight tales of fumbling love and burdensome discoveries, stories that feel like snippets from some greater book, or, perhaps, an actual life. Which is not to deny their power--they are engaging and carefully constructed, graceful examinations of the uneasy, tentative relationships young women often forge with the men in their lives.

Over half the stories feature, to some degree, fathers--intelligent, manipulative men, alternately charming and pompous. In "The Trouble with Mr. Leopold," a girl discerns the shortcomings of both her father and one of her teachers, and discovers her own voice amidst their contending ones. In "Mr. Sweetly Indecent," a young woman confronts not only her adulterous father, but also the superficiality of some of her own romances. The title story offers a young woman sheathed in recollections of her father even as he lies dying. And the final two, "A Day in the Country" and "Snowed In," present girls thrust into uncomfortable, unwanted sexual encounters.

Broyard is particularly adept at coaxing revelations from the intersection of desires. Inevitably, it seems, while her characters seek reconciliation or acceptance, they likewise buttress their countervailing defenses. Broyard's women are wary, ambivalent about men, and apt to view intimacy as alluring in the ideal but somewhat estranging in practice. "Picturing the apartment now," one character reflects, "filled with her and Max's things and all the photos of them--on beaches, at parties, huddled with a group of their friends--she cannot bring herself to go home." Her women, unfortunately, can also become redundant, inflections of a single fallible character: aloof, possessed of an observer's detachment, distractingly and curiously preoccupied with the dancing abilities of others. It's impossible not to feel that, with all their clever, illuminating power, these stories promise larger worlds. --Ben Guterson

"Each one of Bliss Broyard's wonderful stories takes aim at those relatively ordinary events of life and explodes them into the full complexity of the modern age, of families, of fathers and daughters. I love these stories, perhaps mostly because I love the strong and true hearts of the young women at the center of them. They tell us that life, even when it is rough, is full of moments of grace, moments to be treasured."
-- Christopher Tilghman

"In these stories we encounter an acute sensitivity to the moment -- to the cruelty and desire underneath social situations -- and a supple, refined writing style that dissects our confusions with wisdom and clarity. Bliss Broyard has all the right moves. This is a stunningly satisfying debut."
-- Phillip Lopate

"Bliss Broyard's My Father, Dancing is a dazzlingly brilliant debut by a writer who is clearly destined for a long and important literary career. Not incidentally, the title story is the most extraordinary rendering of the death of a father since "What the Cystoscope Said," written by her late father, Anatole Broyard, four decades ago. Anatole, one of America's most demanding and perceptive critics, would have loved this book."
-- Robert Olen Butler

"Bliss Broyard's stories are straightforward and open-hearted about the most difficult situations. I especially liked the father-daughter stories -- sweet, tough, and heartbreaking."
-- John Casey

"Bliss Broyard's stories are taken up with quiet moments that have their own peculiarly strong reverberations. They're about the inevitability of certain kinds of suffering, with flashes of insight -- and sometimes moments of redemption -- that leave you feeling wiser. They take their point of departure from the American landscape. These stories are really grounded: they're rooted here, with taproots to the world."
-- Ann Beattie