Like a Sister

Daugharty (Whistle; Earl in the Yellow Shirt) once again proves her talent for capturing the voices of a small-town South, writing eloquently of those on society's margins. Cornerville, Ga., in 1956 has standards of public respectability and resents ""how that trashy bunch of Odumses have opened the old cafe and invaded the neighborhood."" Thirteen-year-old Sister is just starting to fathom the hostility directed at her family: her mother, Marnie, is prostituting herself at the cafe run by her newest man, Sade Odums, and has all but abandoned her twin boys and baby to Sister's care. When one of the twins, Mickey, runs away and winds up in Alabama, Sade and Marnie refuse to inconvenience themselves enough to bring him home. Sister has to ask seedy church deacon and politician Ray Williams to retrieve her brother, and the man expects sexual favors in exchange. Luckily, Sister's neighbor, housewife Willa Lamar, is there to help. Willa, who represents the stability and security Sister has never known, comes to Sister's aid after the girl's bloody showdown with the treacherous Williams. Throughout, Daugharty sensitively describes the neglected girl's hardscrabble survival skills; Sister carries her pathetically filthy baby sister on barefoot ramblings that take her from the small stores where she wheedles food (primarily candy) for herself and the other children, and back to her family's garbage-strewn yard. Sister is a believable, resilient character, a lonely, confused child who must too soon shoulder adult responsibility. Her loyalty to her mother, and her longing for the days when ""between the other boyfriends and husbands, Sister and Marnie were close"" is at times heartrending, and Sister's struggle to preserve her love for Marnie despite the growing realization that her self-centered mother doesn't ""give a damn"" charges this novel with emotional power. (Dec.)