HER OWN PLACE by Dori Sanders...

HER OWN PLACE by Dori Sanders (Fawcett: $9; 243 pp.). Sanders’ well-crafted novel depicts the circumscribed world of Mae Lee Barnes, a black woman in rural South Carolina whose life spans much of the 20th Century. Barnes embodies her own vision of family values: After her husband abandons her, she works hard to provide for herself and her five children. A perfectionist, she expects her children to meet the rigorous standards she sets for herself, complaining that one daughter has been “spreading layers of makeup on her face, as if she were competing with a seven-layer pineapple cake.” But Barnes also learns to accept the many changes she witnesses in a warm, humane portrait that never slips into treacly self-righteousness.