Absalom's Mother & Other Stories

From Booklist

Marley's first collection covers a wide range of the fantastic with a keen eye for human character and motivation. The title story, inspired by the biblical fate of Absalom, concerns a group of women on a distant planet who sacrifice themselves to save their children from being taken away to war at younger and younger ages. "Starchild Wondersmith" gives entirely new life to the situation of the kid trying to fit in at a new school, for Starchild is a True Being; since he isn't getting the expected TB powers, he chooses transfer to a normal school and discovers hidden depths. The volume closer, "Deep River," tells of the marvelous meeting between the greatest operatic voices of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one of them a naturalized American originally from Germany, the other a young black woman from Harlem. Marley's narrative voice is strong, and her focus on characters and emotional depth pays off in a set of satisfying, thought-provoking stories. Regina Schroeder

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