FICTION

HER OWN PLACE by Dori Sanders (Algonquin Books: $16.95; 243 pp.). Dori Sanders’ personal saga will fuel the dreams of fiction writers for years to come. Sanders spent most of her life working the family farm--one of the oldest black-owned farms in South Carolina--until her first novel, “Clover,” made her a best-selling author with a Disney Pictures contract. Now she works among the peach trees in between stints in her office and speaking engagements around the country. Her second effort, “Her Own Place,” is the story of Mae Lee Barnes, a woman who buys a farm, raises five children, does some hospital work, and takes time off when she can to watch the Atlanta Braves play baseball. She is like her creator (save that Sanders has no children) in her tenacity, and her belief that life truly is in the details. The book rolls gently along, with a sweet mix of humor and familiarity. Dori Sanders occasionally allows herself the excesses of the second novel, the exaggerated phrase, the high-blown writing, but nothing really distracts from the book’s genuine strength.