MY FATHER'S HOUSE

This is a woman's thoroughly feminine, and often quite personal, record of the months which begin at the death and funeral of her mother, and end with the death of her father. In this time, she primarily reassesses her relationship to her father, but she is also seen (and sees herself) as both a wife and a mother of two nearly grown children, straightforward and almost too strong -- or proud- for her own good. Her father's extended visit heightens unsuspected tensions, between herself and Andrew; it perhaps helps to precipitate her daughter's unwise attempted elopement; and finally, only after her father dies, is she able to reconcile his lack of feeling for her, in her childhood, with her lack of grief now- and her guilt- at his death.... Mrs. Eclov's first novel is reasonably pleasant, recognizable rather than original, subjective rather than subtle.