In these brief stories the author succeeds in lucidly reconstructing the place, time and especially the people. The centre of his stories and often the viewpoint is the father, which is rather unique at least in my reading. ( )

"In a Father's Place," Christopher Tilghman's debut collection of short fiction, was widely praised upon its publication in 1990. Reading it again after many years, it is astounding and heartening to discover how well this book has held up. More than just a very good collection of stories, it strikes this reader as an important milestone in American fiction, a book to which others must bear comparison. Tilghman's stories, set primarily in and around Chesapeake Bay, depict family members struggling to connect with one another and deal with the often conflicting demands of contemporary life. Each story constructs its own subtle moral drama, in which fathers and mothers and sons and daughters test each other's vulnerabilities, grow together and apart, and sometimes discover that the needs of the family do not always serve the individual. Tilghman's prose, supple and plain as day, is filled with the kind of evocative detail that brings the world in which his characters reside clearly into focus. You close this book with the sense that you have experienced something rare and timeless and elemental, and absolutely essential. "In a Father's Place" sets a standard that few contemporary novels and story collections can match. ( )