"Daddy's Gone A-Hunting" is about the expectations of women, about a house-bound
mother reluctantly (desperately) at home all day, in contrast to her daughter w
ho has escaped, to university and then, we can assume, to a job. 'The book came
out at a time,' writes Valerie Grove (author of the recently published "A Voyage
Round John Mortimer") in the Preface, 'when the impact of the new wave of femin
ism, which would change everything under the banner of women's liberation, had n
ot yet arrived'.In Ruth Whiting's commuter-belt village 'the wives conform to a
certain standard of dress, they run their houses along the same lines, bring the
ir children up in the same way; all prefer coffee to tea, all drive cars, play b
ridge, own at least one valuable piece of jewellery and are moderately good-look
ing.' Yet Ruth is on the verge of going mad. A 'nervous breakdown' would be a po
liter phrase, but really she is being driven mad by her life and her madness is
exacerbated by everyone's indifference to her plight.Although "Daddy's Gone A-Hu
nting" is at times excuciatingly funny in its caustic dissection of the people a
mong whom the Whitings live, it is also a profound study of female isolation.
