The Bookmaker's Daughter

This deeply felt memoir is a journey through family history, feminist insight, and southern mythology. In it a daughter reflects on the complicated and volatile love she and her father shared. Shirley Jean Abbott grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the 1940s and 50s and was the beloved daughter of Alfred Bemont Abbott, affectionately known as Hat. Hat wasnt a bookmaker in the literary sense, even though he allowed Shirleys mother to believe as much while they were dating. Rather, his craft was gambling, and his business was horse racing. Despite the corruption, which put food on the table and rabbit coats in the closet, Abbott remembers the kind and attentive father who spent nights reading to her. He alone is responsible for opening the door to a world of language and literature for her. And she ran with it. Against her fathers wishes, after graduation she headed for New York City. In the end, the girl he had nurtured into an independent and intelligent young woman had outgrown the small town where she grew up. The Bookmakers Daughter was originally published by Ticknor and Fields in 1992 and was a Book of the Month Club selection.