Differences, rather than common experiences, are the opening motif of the book. To show them, French uses frequent shifts of point of view, jumping from Mary's to Elizabeth's to Alex's or Ronalda's voice and thoughts within a few pages. This is done so skillfully that when unity and understanding develop between the sisters, it comes as a happy surprise.

Plot is insignificant in Our Father's story line; it is a novel of character and ideology. The revelation of and confrontation over Stephen Upton's acts, which would form the climax of a more conventional novel, occurs just past the halfway point of the book. It is not much of a revelation anyway; his daughters' conversations have already given the reader heavy hints. The author thus plays with and twists the accepted novelistic structure of steadily rising tension to a facedown in the climax, followed by a quick resolution, which...