Jessica Anderson is an Australian novelist with a deep understanding of the complexity of human emotions. She sees that a person can feel multiple things at once, even if the things are in conflict: love and loathing, care and selfishness, lust and distaste.
In The Only Daughter she portrays this mass of conflict as we see a fractured family. The father, a tough man, lies in bed after suffering a devastating stroke. His second wife cares for him, but there is an intensity of discord between them. His step family hovers, and his son from his first marriage is there too. And from abroad comes his only daughter, who was on her way home anyway, and did know until she got there of his condition.
The step family starts speculating right away, "Who will get the old man's money?" "Who will care for their mother (his current wife) if she is left out of the fortune?" And underlying it all are those conflicting emotions...they are wondering about the money because they care about their mother and/or, they are also greedy.
This is a very adult book...it deals with the messes we make of things, and the inevitability of no one understanding our true motivations, sometimes not even ourselves.
Anderson's writing is detailed, and her characters are not formulaic, but people I may know. She portrays none as heroes, but none are villains either...they are just people trying to get by, with their mass of conflict, looking to make each day worth it, and trying their damnedest to do the right thing.
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