Another Mother

Robson (Circle) has crafted a delicately nuanced novel about one woman's attempts to make sense of the labels that define her life. Angie Evans, a product of hardscrabble coal country and a depressive, clinging and abusive mother for whom she herself must now assume responsibility, is a high-powered New York lawyer specializing in defending the rights of lesbian mothers to retain custody of their children. Angie is a mother herself, to the adopted Skye, whose parenting she shares with Rachel, also a lawyer and her life partner of many years. She's also a reluctant philanderer, trapped in an unsatisfying affair with Kim, a manipulative legal intern. Angie is a workaholic and certainly obsessive, her life governed by the entries in the massive organizer book she carries everywhere; her dreams are confined to the pages of catalogues displaying luxury items. In episodic chapters stretching over a year, Angie's past and present merge, vignettes from her childhood and youth mixing with scenes from her current life. When the supports and boundaries of her existence begin to crumble (a client commits suicide, Rachel discovers her affair, etc.), Angie crashes as well, both figuratively and literally. And yet there is hope that somehow Angie will emerge complete, stronger for her travails and centered at last. (Oct.)