The orphan's daughter : a novel
(Book)

The Orphan's Daughter is a novel about a woman who grows up in the shadow of her charismatic but troubled father, a man shaped by his boyhood in a Depression-era Jewish orphanage. The two life stories are woven together to form the fabric of this funny and suspenseful work of literary fiction. Clyde Aronson survives the cruelties of the orphanage but is left scarred. A popular high-school teacher and a callous womanizer, he fathers two daughters. He resents most the one who most resembles him: the younger, Joanna. Joanna Aronson is thirty, alienated and living in Southern California when she learns of her father's puzzling illness. She returns home to Baltimore to help care for him. In the process, the two reconcile; Clyde promises to leave Joanna a secret manuscript written long ago about life in the orphanage.