Daughter Mine

Freewheeling in scope and unafraid of pathos, this tale of love, moral compromise, parenthood and regret in San Francisco focuses on Dan Shaper, a middle-aged courtroom translator whose life as a sloppy bachelor is disrupted by a visit from a daughter he didn't know he had. Amanda Torres, 19, is the product of a tryst Shaper has long forgotten, with Margaret Torres, a former bohemian drifter who's also now living in San Francisco. Together, mother and daughter place a familial stronghold on Shaper. Amanda almost immediately makes financial demands on him, which he is in no position to satisfy. If Shaper doesn't support his daughter, then her boyfriend D'Wayne will let her work with him at the Yerba Buena Foundation, a bordello masquerading as a psychiatric counseling center through which stereotypical San Franciscan fetishists parade. Although Shaper does not fit snugly into the role of ""father"" after so many years of freedom from family responsibility, he understands his role well enough to disapprove of D'Wayne and the foundation. Shaper's dislike of his daughter's choice of mate is classic, and would be more humorous if Gold didn't push it to the point of semicomic violence. Shaper must chose between allowing Amanda to make her own decisions and taking matters into his own hands, which will lead nowhere. The narrative rolls along at a comfortable pace, allowing plenty of room for characters' inner vacillations, recollections and other digressions. This pace often becomes a little too relaxed, and the novel comes to an anticlimactic and inconclusive end. But Gold's wry observations on life in California, supported by a realist's sense of detail, hold his book together. (June)