Until the publication of Marked by Fire in 1982, Joyce Carol Thomas, longtime San Francisco Bay area literary figure, was known primarily as a poet and the writer-producer of four plays. As a poet she is often praised for her seriousness of theme, thoroughness of treatment, faithful rendering of the black and human experience, and authentic persona. In her best poems she is able to record the histories of ordinary people. Although her accomplishments in poetry are many, it is with fiction that she has achieved national critical attention. With the publication of Marked by Fire and Bright Shadow (in 1983), Thomas moved to the forefront of serious black women writers. She joins the ranks of Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker in introducing a group of characters heretofore unknown in American literature; for in the hands of white and some black male writers...