Martha's Daughter: (Of the Diaspora) - Hardcover

by Erica Vital-Lazare (Editor), David Haynes (Author)

Named one of the top books of 2025 by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Washington Independent Review of Books.

Martha's Daughter is the brilliant and influential author David Haynes's first short story collection and the first time that Haynes's stories have ever been assembled in one volume. Steeped in everyday gossip and lives, this collection ranges from the magically real life of a city's crumbling superhero to a rundown motel whose long-term guests are lucky to call home. In the titular novella the first hours are chronicled after Cynthia finds out her mother has died. What we learn is that Cynthia is a woman who has been bullied by her mother's overbearing opinions, her disdain for difference, her respectability politics, and her outdated beliefs about how men and women should relate to one another. Martha's death is less a catalyst for Cynthia's grief than an opportunity to free herself of a burden too long endured.

The sixth in McSweeney's Of the Diaspora series, Martha's Daughter is another record in David's oeuvre, of the people and places he's been recording since the beginning of his career, some thirty years ago. With its full-circle connection to Haynes's previous novels, Martha's Daughter is guaranteed to enthrall longtime fans and new readers alike.

Author Biography

David Haynes is the founder of Kimbilio, a retreat for fiction writers of the African diaspora. Now in its ninth year, Kimbilio boasts a roster of today's most celebrated talent in fiction including LaToya Watkins, Jamel Brinkley, Rion Amilcar Scott and Jonathan Escoffery. David is also an emeritus professor of English at Southern Methodist University, where he directed the creative writing program for ten years. Since 1996 he has taught regularly in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Several of his short stories have been read and recorded for the National Public Radio series "Selected Shorts."