THE PURE GOLD BABY

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