Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2016
272 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Two half-sisters, one black and one white, embark on a risky road trip through the 1950s Jim Crow South in this spellbinding story of identity and race.
Self-educated and brown skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother's laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for "colored music" and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father's inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what's rightly theirs.
In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the American Deep South of the 1950s, a bewitchingly beautiful landscape as well as one bedeviled by racial striving and violence. Suzanne Feldman's Absalom's Daughters combines the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, and a dash of magical realism to enthrall and move us with an unforgettable, illuminating novel.
"Regrettably I gave up on Absalom's Daughters one-fifth of the way through. The Southern dialect felt false to me, and the characters did not resonate." - BookBrowse
"Starred Review. A searing and magical debut by a monumental new talent." - Kirkus
"This warm story with two endearing leads offers a new frame of understanding for what it means to seek freedom, and what the seeker must give up in exchange." - Publishers Weekly
"Will appeal to Faulkner fans... and to all who are intrigued by how two girls who discover their true identities in a place determined to limit their options." - Booklist
"Beautiful, funny, and wise, Absalom's Daughters is a moving adventure and a powerful evocation of the Jim Crow South. Judith and Cassie's odyssey embodies America's long struggle to achieve compassion and justice despite our deep racial divide." - Dennis Danvers, author of Wilderness and Circuit of Heaven
"In Absalom's Daughters, we are taken into that place where only a really good novel is capable of going - a world that completely absorbs us ... a novel that engages, entertains, provokes, and ultimately reminds us of the complexity and fragility of being human in a world overcrowded with expectation and agenda." - Adam Braver, author of Mr. Lincoln's Wars
"Absalom's Daughters is a beautiful and compelling story, written with utmost authority." - Hannah Pittard, author of Listen to Me
"Sharp-eyed and witty, Absalom's Daughters is a delightful recipe consisting of one part girls' road trip, one part family saga, and one part good old-fashioned Southern yarn ... An absorbing read, full of heart!" - Suzanne Rindell, author of Three-Martini Lunch and The Other Typist
This information about Absalom's Daughters was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Suzanne Feldman, a recipient of the Missouri Review Editors' Prize and a finalist for the Bakeless Prize in fiction, holds an MA in fiction from Johns Hopkins University and a BFA in art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the author of award-winning science fiction titles like Speaking Dreams and The Annunciate, published under the pen name Severna Park. Her short fiction has appeared in Narrative, The Missouri Review, Gargoyle, and other literary journals. She lives in Frederick, Maryland.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
