The Pure Gold Baby

Book excerpt: 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