Daddy Love

Daddy Love is a horrifying glimpse into every mother's worst nightmare. Joyce Carol Oates captures perfectly the feelings of helplessness and underlying sense of hope that exists when a child goes missing. This is more than a novel about those left behind after a child kidnapping however. Ms. Oates takes readers into the mind of the kidnapper and even more tragically into the mind of the kidnapped as he struggles against the phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome.

What makes this truly unique is that Ms. Oates does not sugarcoat the truth, nor does she create an unrealistic fairy tale ending. Children subject to physical and mental torture like Gideon cannot escape and return to a life of normalcy, and neither can a family torn apart by such show more a loss pick up where they were before the tragedy. The repercussions of Chester Cash's actions have long-lasting, if not permanent, repercussions that Ms. Oates chooses not to ignore. It makes for a bleaker but more realistic story.

This novel is not for the faint of heart. Ms. Oates holds no punches in informing readers just how depraved Chester is. Yet, it is not until the meaning of the cover becomes clear, the true horror of Daddy Love's teaching methods comes to light. While it is only one glimpse into Gideon's plight, a picture really is worth a thousand words, and this one picture speaks volumes.

Daddy Love is a novel that is going to simultaneously repulse and entrance readers. As disgustingly perverted as Chester Cash's actions are, there is something riveting about Gideon's twin mindsets. His dawning awareness of Daddy Love's perversions combined with the warring submissiveness taught by Cash's brutal teaching methods are a fascinating psychological study. Dinah's struggles for normalcy in the wake of her terrible injuries and heartbreaking loss are equally fascinating and just as heartrending. As difficult a read as it is, Daddy Love is worth the read, if only to leave one with a sense of thankfulness at not having to experience anything like Gideon or Dinah. show less

In the interest of full disclosure, I really had to work myself up to reading Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates. What finally tipped me over the edge into trying it was (definitely not the few reviews I read) the smaller size of the book.

I've tried to read Joyce Carol Oates before. I failed at reading Blonde and, although I'd heard her writing is exquisite, I struggled with getting myself to a place where I could try again. So when I saw she had written a book that was less than 300 pages I thought... here we go, and picked it up. Then I put it down when I saw what it was about. Then I picked it up again because.. "never judge a book by its cover" right? You get the picture.

So, contrary to what many reviews say, this book is not entirely show more from the perspective of "Daddy Love," nor does it gratuitously detail obscene and horrible acts committed. Rather, it's the story of desperation, resilience, depravity, and how all three of those things come together to show that sometimes the "happy ending" involves some not so happy results.

Daddy Love is told from a few different viewpoints. The viewpoint of Dinah, the mother of young Robbie; the viewpoint of "Daddy Love," the man who abducts Robbie, the viewpoint of "Gideon," the young Robbie renamed. Dinah made me feel complete and total despair; Daddy Love made me feel like I needed to shower - repeatedly; Gideon made me weep. This book reminded me quite a bit of Emma Donaghue's Room. I had to guard myself emotionally a few times. Was it worth it? Honestly, I don't know how to say it was other than to say that everything is written for a purpose. With the horrors that happen today we struggle to figure out why someone would do the things they do and who better than the authors to give us a glimpse into the mind of just one person in order to allow us to understand how that person was molded.

I was blown away by the quality of writing here. There's a reason Joyce Carol Oates has the place she holds in the literary world. Daddy Love was a thought-provoking, bone-chilling novel that I'll be thinking about in the days and months to come. show less

Joyce Carol Oates has an astounding way of getting inside the heads of sexual predators and their victims. Hers is such a talent, in fact, that her darkest novels (and, with Oates, dark is a relative term because almost all of her novels can be called dark) are a challenge to a reader’s emotional sensitivities. And, the author’s latest, Daddy Love, in which a five-year-old is violently snatched from his mother in a shopping center parking lot, is even more disturbing than most.

As Diane and Robbie walk through the mall parking lot, they play a game designed to teach the little boy to pay attention to his surroundings. His mother is subtly guiding Robbie back to their car while asking him to help by telling her which way to turn and show more whether they are going in the right direction. But the truth is that Diane is finding it difficult to remember exactly where she parked and, because she is so distracted by her own confusion, she never notices the man preparing to knock her down and steal away with her son. Later, despite having been severely injured during her stunned efforts to save her son, Diane finds that she will second-guess herself for the rest of her life.

Their marriage will be so severely stressed by the loss of their only child that Diane and Whit Whitcomb will barely manage to stay together. Through it all, Diane, even though battling physical and emotional trauma that will scar her forever, refuses to believe that Robbie will not one day come home. Years later, she is still waiting for the magical phone call announcing that her son has been recovered from his abductor.

Robbie’s kidnapper is Chester Cash, a serial child-abductor who insists that his victims call him Daddy Love. Cash, a part-time preacher and full-time ladies man, is brilliantly evil. He disguises his contempt for women so well that he easily manipulates a string of lonely and insecure ones to do his dirty work – from cleaning his pig sty of a house, to doing his laundry, to giving him their money – all the while, playing mind-games with his young victims that turn them into willing victims for years at a time.

Cash’s usual routine of rape and torture, followed by rewards for pleasing him, works until Robbie begins to comprehend why Daddy Love’s earlier victims have all disappeared. He figures out that around age twelve, which Robbie is fast approaching, Cash will no longer find him sexually appealing. If he is going to survive, Robbie has to make his escape soon because he is running out of time.

The most horrifying aspect of Daddy Love is the novel’s portrayal of the effectiveness of brainwashing suffered by young victims at the hands of sexual perverts. Robbie, because he becomes so dependent on Daddy Love for his physical and emotional wellbeing, never makes a break for freedom or cries for help despite having ample opportunity to do so. He simply cannot imagine a life without Daddy Love. Oates, by telling Daddy Love’s story from both his and Robbie’s viewpoints, shows how a child’s innocence is so easily and completely overwhelmed by an adult evil enough to want to do so.

Not easy to read, and even harder to forget, Daddy Love is a reminder of the shadow world that threatens our children…a world parents cannot afford to ignore.

Rated at: 4.0 show less

Creepy, unsettling, and brilliant! Oates’ novel recounts the kidnapping of a very young boy named Robbie Whitcomb by a man who calls himself Daddy Love. Oates details the cycle of sexual and physical abuse and conditioning that bond the two as father and son in the eyes of their community for six years. Oates also shows the painful crumbling of the marriage of Robbie’s real parents and a reunion that is so sad it’s tragic. This disturbing book will appeal to fans of Emma Donoghue’s Room.

I have read many books on the subject of child abuse and pedophilia and many of them were quite good. This one is not. What do you do if you have one hundred and fifty pages of content and you want to write a book over two hundred fifty pages long. First, you refer to the characters by name over and over again. Daddy Love must be in the text a thousand times. I read Mommie, Robbie and Gabriel so many times that I wanted to scream. It wasn't just names that were constantly repeated - many other aspects of the book were also.After spending 2/3 of the book with Daddy Love Oates drops him like a hot potato and goes back to lives of the missing boys parents who have been absent for five years. This is the literary equivalent of listening to show more fingernails scratching a chalk board.. show less

I almost abandoned this book about a little boy, Robbie, who is abducted and sexually tortured for six years. The early chapters were just too disturbing. Either I hardened my heart or I just got caught up in the suspense, but I’m glad I stuck it out. It’s a riveting portrayal of a despicable monster and it raises interesting questions about how trauma and abuse shapes a child.

Note: to this reader, the first few chapters were excruciating. Describing the abduction of the boy outside a shopping mall, Oates repeats the same facts over and over from slightly different perspectives, and I lost patience quickly. Then as the story changes over to Robbie’s life with the predator, Oates abandons the technique of repetition and the pace show more of the book speeds up considerably. show less

I'm not, generally, a squeamish reader, but this 'unflinching' tale was a pretty tough read. When a sweet, much-loved five year old is abducted in a mall cap park, the parents spend six years in limbo.
Meanwhile Robbie is held hostage by the menacing Chester Cash, aka 'Daddy Love' - a sometime preacher - who veers unpredictably from affection to fury...
Joyce Carol Oates is a poweful writer. But I was glad to finish this.