Absalom's Daughters

A spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South

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… (more)

A spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South

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 strife 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.