[In the following review, Lodge offers a favorable assessment of Marilee.]

Spencer's simple, sturdy prose makes this [Marilee] a memorable, if all too short, collection of stories. There are three tales here, told by Marilee, a young woman raised in a Mississippi town. Marilee's subjects are her family and close friends and their sleepy, Southern small-town lifestyle. Spencer depicts them all with clarity, humor and warmth, leaving the reader impatient to know more about these folk, their background and their lives. In the first story Marilee is a junior in high school when she writes a prize-winning paper. Foster Hamilton, a young newspaper reporter, comes to interview her, and captures Marilee's heart. But Foster's love of drink cuts their relationship short. Portraits of Marilee's eccentric, extremely likable uncles Hernan and Rex emerge in the two remaining stories.