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The Pure Gold Baby: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

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Average Rating
Published:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013
Status:
Available from OverDrive
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
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
10/01/2013
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780544157767
ASIN:
B00E78IEBS
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Margaret Drabble. (2013). The Pure Gold Baby: A Novel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Margaret Drabble. 2013. The Pure Gold Baby: A Novel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Margaret Drabble, The Pure Gold Baby: A Novel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Margaret Drabble. The Pure Gold Baby: A Novel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
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Shared Digital Collection22
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Grouped Work ID:
ba132598-8065-b308-5251-c845b31254d0
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 17:23:19
Date Updated:
Jul 16, 2023 03:11:08
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 08:47:08
Last Metadata Change:
Jan 14, 2024 08:42:29
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 08:47:11
Last Availability Change:
Oct 01, 2023 10:47:36
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 02:11:39

OverDrive Product Record

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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
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        August 5, 2013
        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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        May 15, 2013

        Reversing her dire 2009 announcement that she would stop writing fiction, Drabble offers a wrenching but clear-eyed look at the responsibilities of motherhood. Pregnant owing to an affair with a married professor, graduate student Jessica Speight gives birth to glowy Anna, but it soon becomes apparent that Anna will never be a normal child. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

        Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2013

        Anna is the daughter of anthropologist and writer Jessica Speight and is her "pure gold baby"--a happy and loving child with special needs and capabilities. As a single mother in 1960s London, Jess navigates career, relationships, and the National Health Service with compromise, determination, and the help of a close-knit circle of friends, including the narrator, an attorney and mother. Readers follow Anna and Jess for four decades amid frequent musings on parenthood, aging, mental health care, and London's changing neighborhoods. Through it all are woven accounts of Jess's lifelong anthropological research interests, studied mostly at a distance. This is an intimate look at a small family and its circle, told with wit, sensitivity, and deft knowledge of the household details of its setting. Drabble, the distinguished author of more than two dozen novels (e.g., The Radiant Way; The Seven Sisters) and works of nonfiction (The Oxford Companion to English Literature), is a masterly storyteller and a preeminent chronicler of modern life. VERDICT Readers who yearn for well-crafted fiction full of thoughtful ideas and observations should welcome this heartily. [See Prepub Alert, 4/15/13.]--Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast

        Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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shortDescription
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...
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