Daddy - Danielle Steel

It was interesting to read A Danielle Steel book which was not "woman centric."  This time Oliver Watson is the main character not the women in his life.  The book is predictable but comforting.

It tells the story of Oliver Watson, an advertising executive, and his three children. Oliver believes that he and his wife, Sarah, have the perfect marriage and are raising their three children, Benjamin, Melissa, and Sam in their house in Purchase, New York. Is it a perfect marriage?  Read this gripping, sensitive book and find out!

• 
  • Flag This Review
  • Irrelevant
  • Fake
  • Junk
• Thank You! We appreciate your effort.

''My daddy is the strongest'', said a cute little girl in one advertisement which was on air sometime back. Typically a father is not much involved in raising the kids, as he is out most of the day earning roti-dal for his family. Or we hear about how daughters are more attached to fathers and how fathers fuss about when daughter's get married (Remember ''Father of the Bride'' movie). But this book is ''zara hat ke'', it talks about how a Daddy, ''Oliver Watson'' and his trials and tribulations in raising the children. It has been written simply, sweetly and you laugh, cry along with Watson family.

Let's start with what being a father means. Quoting from the book ''What you are attempting to undertake, young man, is an awesome burden. A responsibility you can never shirk, never forget, never avoid. You can't take a day off from being a father. You can't drop out or change your mind, or decide not to be there. For the next eighteen years, if not longer, that baby would be your responsibility'' . The book has a beautiful poem on father. Every time I read it, ''Dil mein kuch kuch hota''. Hats off to all the fathers who are reading it and to my father too. Actually this holds for mother's too but let's just focus on fathers.

The book starts with Sarah, Oliver wife of eighteen years, deciding to leave her three children and her husband to pursue higher studies. Before you react saying ''How can a married woman with a husband and three kids can think of going to school'', let's take a look at other side of the picture. Let's spare some thoughts for the homemaker, whose husband is busy climbing the corporate ladder, children are grown and she is always in a waiting mode.

Danielle Steele has captured the feeling so beautifully, quoting ''That it was going nowhere, that at forty-one her worst fears had come true. Her life was really over. She has never felt so stale and old and tired, and this time she knew she wasn't pregnant. As promised, and agreed, she had had her tubes tied years before, after Sam's arrival. This was something very different. This was the slow, demoralizing realization that your life is going nowhere, that the dreams you had at twenty had dissipated years before and were very likely never real in the first place. She was never going to be a writer. At thirty-five, knowing that would have destroyed her, at thirty nine, it might have killed her. At forty nine, it might have killed her. There was nothing left now, except the ordinariness of her life, while Oldie climbed to greatness. Ir. was an odd feeling. Ever her children were more important than she was. Everyone had something going in their lives. And what did she have? The children, Ollie, the house. The fact that she had gone to Radicliffe twenty hears before. So what? who cared''. I have seen, heard how much respect does a homemaker command. It is easy to say , but it is a thankless , payless job with no holidays.

Coming back to story, Sarah had just one slim chance and she took it and yes she had to pay the price for it and so did her kids. But they say ''If you love someone set it free, if it comes back it is yours, if it doesn't it never was''. Does Sarah come back to her family? To know that you have to read the book.

Children reaction to their mother's departure is shown realistically. How does a 7 year old react, he starts wetting the bed. A seventeen year old boy feels, quoting from book, ''He loved her and wished her well, but secretly he thought it was a terrible thing to do. He couldn't imagine leaving a child, he never thought she would do a thing like that. But she had, and she was, and now everything has changed. What was left? nothing a bunch of kids. A father who worked all the time. And a hired woman to cool for them. Suddenly, he couldn't wait to get out in the fall. He would have left sooner if he could. He had no family anymore. Just a bunch of people he lived with''. My heart went out to him on reading it. And the human nature is shown in all it's colors. How we look for someone to blame? Sarah blamed Ollie and her family, Kids blamed their father and Ollie...he blamed himself? What could he have done, I wondered and so did he that would prevented Sarah from leaving the house.

How the family copes up without their mother? What changes they have to make , Ollie had to make is the crux of the book. Believe me it is not a sad story It shows how life is full of sorrow and happiness. How one small thing changes the course of a person's and his family? Benjamin, to take out his frustration gets involved with a girl and at eighteen when he was supposed to go to school he ends up being the father. How his mother reacts. ''He'll come around. Wait until the kids start screaming day and night, like he did. He'll be begging you to help him escape, but in the meantime he has to do what he thinks is right''. Ollie is upset, think he is crazy , fight with him to leave the girl and finally all he says is '' I love you and I'll always be with you''. The frustration, the helplessness, the despair, the disappointment of a parent is shown and along with Ollie one can but not help sympathize with Benjamin. What happens to Benjamin?, for that you have to read the book.

I enjoy the book everytime I read it. Yes, you feel it has soap-opera kind of story but it goes much beyond. The feelings are not exaggerated, and I ended up laughing and crying with Ollie, Sarah, Benjamin, Sam and Melissa. What does one need from life, lots of money, lots of power, independence or a spouse who makes everything worthwhile. And one who has that is the luckiest person alive.

It is different from other Danielle Steele books, because the protagonist is not a young beautiful girl who goes through a war and ends up being in Hollywood or rich. I sincerely recommend it to one and all. The poem in the starting is great.

• 
  • Flag This Review
  • Irrelevant
  • Fake
  • Junk
• Thank You! We appreciate your effort.