- "A complete abomination of the English language"
The most recent installment in books for young people coping with the divorce of their parents is Peggy Mann's My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel, released in 1973. The book tells the story of young Joey Grant, who hears his parents having a loud argument one night. His dad leaves the house and does not come home the next day. Joey, thinking that it was his own bad behavior that caused his dad to leave, writes a list of all his bad habits and goes to his dad's office in Manhattan by bus to deliver it. His dad explains to Joey that his departure was due to his incompatibility with Joey's mother. While it takes time for Joey to understand and accept this new situation, he ultimately discovers that he will still see his dad and that many of his peers at school have a similar home situation. At the end of the story, Joey and his friend Pepe decide to start a club for kids with divorced parents.
Peggy Mann has decided to write the story in Joey's words. Or she is just a bad writer. Either way, its a risky strategy, as much of the book is almost unreadable. Sentences seem to stop and start whenever they want, rules of grammar are thrown out the window, slang is seemingly invented and still used in improper ways. The dust jacket lists three other books that Mann has written, so apparently her lack of command over the language has not stopped her from writing. If you find this book discarded from a library as I did, you might want to avoid it.
