The Pure Gold Baby
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
An “achingly wise” novel about the challenges of motherhood: “Admirers of Marilynne Robinson will find themselves very much at home in this book” (The Wall Street Journal).
Jessica Speight, an anthropologist in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair turns her into a single mother. Baby Anna is delightful—but with time it becomes clear that she is different from other children. Told from the point of view of Jess’s fellow mothers, this is a movingly intimate look at the unexpected transformations at the heart of motherhood.
“How do we treat the child who walks among us in a different way than most? In Margaret Drabble’s hands the answer is with a depth of empathy few master.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
“Moving and meditative . . . I found a kind of somber bravery in the story of this unwavering, intelligent woman and her guileless and beautiful child.” —Meg Wolitzer, NPR’s All Things Considered
“The Pure Gold Baby is a closely observed group portrait of female friends, a patient insight into the joys and pains of motherhood, and an image of how society has changed and how it has not.” —Harper’s Magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anna, the eponymous golden baby, is born to anthropologist Jess Speight in 1960s London. Anna is sweet-natured, pretty, and, it turns out, developmentally disabled: she'll never live on her own or learn to read. And though she's fatherless, her mother is smart, dedicated, and loving, and the two are surrounded by a community of mothers who watch over each other. One of these mothers narrates Jess's story from the vantage point of a friendship that has lasted to the present day. The passage of time the narrator often compares their "innocent world" where cholesterol hadn't yet been "invented" to the less innocent but more politically correct present is a primary focus of the book, as is aging, changing views about care of the challenged and the disabled, and the randomness not only of genes but destinies: how much did Jess's early trip to Africa influence her life? Why does one of the children in Jess and Anna's neighborhood end up in jail? But the book merely circles these issues. Occasionally, as when Jess takes up with dashing photographer Bob, the narrator's tone grows breathless, even ominous, and we expect a big event, but there is none. In the end, very little happens, and though Drabble's intelligence is evident, the story drags.
