SOURCE: “Life Without Father,” in Macleans, Vol. 105, No. 11, March 16, 1992, p. 54.

In the following review, Timson offers a generally favorable assessment of The Lost Father.

American writer Mona Simpson set a high standard for herself in her extraordinary first novel, Anywhere but Here (1986), a powerful, quirky story about an erratic mother and the emotional pain she inflicts on her young daughter in their nomadic life together. In her new novel, The Lost Father, Simpson, 34, burrows deeper into that pain, offering another remarkable, if more uneven, story about the daughter, now grown up, and her relentless attempt to fit another piece into the puzzle of her childhood—her missing father. Part detective story, part psychological novel, The Lost Father is particular in its eccentricity and pain, but its theme is sadly universal: the trouble daughters have when their fathers are emotionally or physically absent in their lives.

Mayan Stevenson is...