My Father, Dancing Summary
Bliss Broyard

My Father, Dancing Summary

This collection of eight short stories deals with the complex emotions women experience in relationships, particularly in relationships with their fathers. Some of the stories are tearjerkers, others light and uplifting, but all of them are poignant portraits of the special bond fathers and daughters share. All of Broyard's stories emphasize the father-daughter bond, but they also explore the wide range of human emotions experienced by women in close relationships with other people of the opposite sex.

Broyard outlines the feelings her young characters have regarding their sexuality and she focuses on the problems these characters experience in communicating and in learning to understand the changes in themselves. The young women in this work are coming-of-age and dealing with the complexities of the process. In each of the stories in this collection, Broyard explores how fathers influence their daughters' lives and how relationships between fathers and daughters affect...

(read more from the Short Guide)