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From The New York Times: "One of the great delights of THE CROSSLEY BABY is how forthrightly and naturally it looks at those great American subjects, class and race. Here we are reading a blithe comedy about motherhood wars among the well-to-do and suddenly we find ourselves in Harlem with the working poor, as angry about the lack of health care as Sunny and Leon are. This is a novel so pleasurable, so light and foamy, that we may think we will make it through the entire story without either of the surviving sisters ever once having a serious philosophical, political or spiritual insight, only to find ourselves having epiphanies right alongside them. "THE CROSSLEY BABY... is slyly seductive, and its conclusion about motherhood -- not to mention the move from cushy yuppiedom to working-class struggle -- is completely satisfying." -Valerie Sayers |
The Crossley Baby
Bridget, Jean, and Sunny Crossley grow up in modest circumstances on Long Island, and all end up in the New York City of the 1980s. Free spirit Bridget, the oldest, is a well-traveled, sometime massage therapist in the East Village. Outspoken and ambitious Jean is a corporate headhunter in double-breasted power suits who lives in a gleaming Upper East Side tower. Harvard-educated Sunny, the youngest and sweetest sister, drifts from eligible boyfriend to eligible boyfriend until she falls for Leon, a Harlem real estate developer, and starts a family.
When Bridget dies unexpectedly during what should have been a routine operation, she leaves behind a ten-month-old girl named Jade. The big question becomes: Who should take the baby? The obvious and expert Sunny, or the never-at-home career woman Jean? The answer is more complicated, of course, than either sister could have anticipated. "Jacqueline Carey, writing as she does about love, sometimes the abundance of it, sometimes the lack of it, sometimes the tragedy into which it dissolves, sometimes the sheer joy and humor of it, is a truly wonderful writer. She creates worlds that are rooted in the domestic but they are ones in which the world with its richly warring emotions comes marching through. THE CROSSLEY BABY is the newest addition to a growing and important body of work." -Jamaica Kincaid |
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