Father Melancholy’s Daughter was published by Morrow in 1991 and introduces one of Godwin’s most compelling characters: Margaret Gower, daughter of an Episcopal rector in a small Virginia mountain town, who has organized her entire life around caring for her depressive father after her mother’s mysterious departure. The novel follows Margaret from childhood through young adulthood as she gradually recognizes that her devotion — however genuine — has also become a way of avoiding her own life.
Godwin’s treatment of the church is knowledgeable and respectful — she takes religious life seriously as a subject for fiction in a way that few contemporary American novelists do. The liturgical calendar structures the novel, the theological debates are real and intellectually substantive, and Father Gower’s ministry is depicted as genuine vocation rather than professional role. But the novel’s spiritual seriousness does not prevent it from being psychologically acute: Godwin understands exactly how religious duty can become a mask for emotional avoidance, and how devotion to a parent can be simultaneously the finest thing in a person’s character and the thing that prevents them from living their own life.
The mother’s absence is the mystery at the novel’s center — why did she leave? what does she want? will she return? — and Margaret’s gradual discovery of the truth about her mother’s departure forces her to reassess everything she thought she knew about her family and herself.
Collecting Father Melancholy’s Daughter
First edition (Morrow, New York, 1991): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $10–$25
- Without jacket: $5–$10