Sheer Necessity

Predictable but entertaining, Mitchell's (Nothing but the Rent) second novel centers on 30-year-old Toni Carleton, a black woman in Newark, Del., who is just beginning to realize her dreams. But her difficult family keeps testing her coping abilities with their relentless troubles. Toni is a conscientious single mother who's devoted to her daughter, Sanji, and frustrated with her irresponsible ex-husband, Marvin, who can't keep a job. She's just opened a hair salon with her gay friend Chris, while holding down a second job and attending school. The oldest of three daughters, Toni is constantly worried about her two sisters. Party girl Joy tramps around, borrowing cash and getting high and drunk, all the while concealing a wrenching secret. Lynn, the youngest, a pregnant mother of two, is married to abusive Bruce. Meanwhile, Toni, skittish about dating, meets photographer Beale Jefferson, but their romance is constantly interrupted by additional crises. Toni's mother, Anna Mae, who has a 10th grade education, must pass the GED to keep her job; Chris is on the skids with his lover; Joy disappears, is found in a crack house and sent to rehab, while her young son, Jesse, moves in with Toni. Bruce becomes increasingly hostile, and fragile Lynn returns home with her kids to Anna Mae's house, disrupting her mother's GED studies. Marvin finds Toni's ATM card and siphons her bank account, leading to a bitter feud that puts Sanji in the middle. The domestic troubles are plausible, if overdetermined, and although the denouement is swift and unsurprising, Mitchell's competent tale will find fans in the increasingly popular field of African-American women's fiction. (Oct.)