Choice Review

Maine provides a decent balance to other important works (e.g., Kim Chernin's The Hungry Self, 1985) that focus on the relationship between eating disorders and mother/daughter issues and that have had the effect of making many mothers the focus of blame and guilt. Instead, Maine expands the scope of this work and concentrates on the importance of fathers' roles in the emotional development of their daughters. She argues that there is a natural and important longing that children have for their fathers. If it is unfulfilled, children suffer and are vulnerable to many psychological difficulties, including eating disorders. Development of such a disorder may be one of the only ways a daughter can communicate her sense of abandonment, loneliness, or despair. As part of the healing process, Maine recommends how to mend the father/daughter relationship. She addresses, without blame or judgment, mothers and fathers directly and encourages them to heal their own father hunger. She encourages young women to improve their relationships with their fathers as part of their healing process. Maine does a nice job of integrating psychological and sociological research into her material. An important introduction to new work in this area, suitable for community college students and up.-R. Kabatznick, Queens College, CUNY