The First Man in My Life: Daughters Write About Their Fathers.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Martin gives us a beautifully readable anthology of autobiographical essays by 22 well-established Canadian women writers, each reflecting on her relationship with her father. For some, Dad was a superhero. For others, he was seen as sad, abusive, angry. Or funny and loving, inspiring and benign. To most, he was a puzzle, sometimes inflicting pain, always imposing expectations and standards that would impact the daughter’s personal life and career.

Each introspective essay probes into family dynamics from a jumping-off point that “highlight(s) a moment of truth,” an insight or revelation that crystallizes the essence of the father-daughter relationship. There are regrets for missed opportunities, glimpses of the sources of inherited characteristics and attitudes, re-airing of old hurts and disappointments, even belated acknowledgement that the onus for strengthening the father-daughter bond is partly the responsibility of the daughter.

Each of the 22 contributors has a successful career in some aspect of journalism or writing. Many are novelists. Probably as a result of this familiarity with the practice of using words as tools to communicate thoughts and meanings, the writing is of consistently high quality, focused, and disciplined. Specific personal details are shared and family dynamics and other relevant background introduced, all without derailing the purpose of each narrative — to explore some aspect of the universal longing of women to achieve a more complete understanding of the father-daughter relationship.

Like Canadian women in general, the contributors represent a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds and ages. Most write of a time when parenting, for men, meant little more than being the breadwinner and family disciplinarian, although a few of the younger contributors reflect a more modern role. Regardless of era, all report “from the front lines of real life” and each in her own way confirms, as Margaret Atwood says in the introduction, that “all parents are enigmas.”

To read the essays is to have a sense of being privileged to share personal experiences and observations, of being welcomed, as only friends are, to have a glimpse into very private thoughts.