Leaving Lucy Pear

Solomon, Anna

ISBN 10: 1683240944 ISBN 13: 9781683240945

Publisher: Platinum Spotlight Series, 2016

Synopsis

One night in 1917, Beatrice Haven sneaks out of her uncle s house in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, leaves her newborn baby at the foot of a pear tree, and watches as another woman claims the infant as her own. The unwed daughter of wealthy Jewish industrialists and a gifted pianist bound for Radcliffe, Bea plans to leave her shameful secret behind and make a fresh start. Ten years later, Prohibition is in full swing, post-WWI America is in the grips of rampant xenophobia, and Bea s hopes for her future remain unfulfilled. She returns to her uncle s house, seeking a refuge from her unhappiness. But she discovers far more when the rum-running manager of the local quarry inadvertently reunites her with Emma Murphy, the headstrong Irish Catholic woman who has been raising Bea s abandoned child now a bright, bold, cross-dressing girl named Lucy Pear, with secrets of her own."

About this title

Review

Leaving Lucy Pear is that rare combination of stunning language, raw emotion, and profound wisdom that catches you up and wrings you out and yet somehow leaves you fuller than when you began. In this tender new novel, Anna Solomon looks at our most fundamental relationships - between mothers, children, and lovers - with more compassion and grace than seems humanly possible (Celeste Ng, New York Times-bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You)

In Anna Solomon's marvellously textured new novel, Cape Ann in the late 1920s thrums with the issues of the day. When two seemingly dissimilar women become bound to the same child, we're given a piercing and often profound look at motherhood, what it is and isn't, as well as the ways suffering makes and unmakes us all, sometimes many times over. Solomon is an enormously gifted writer, and her penetrating tale will linger in your mind long after the last page has turned (Paula McLain, New York Times-bestselling author of The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun)

Solomon's strong prose and fleet pacing consistently provide the essential pleasures of a good story well told. . . . This is a book governed...by earnest empathy, a desire to give each character opportunities for growth and betterment, bravery and openness. (Maggie Shipstead, New York Times Book Review)

Anna Solomon's novel invites you in with tons of atmosphere, from the foggy New England location to the 1920s culture to the gender politics. You'll get lost in this story, which feels truly new and fresh (Good Housekeeping)

Solomon is a beautiful writer, and her prose brings people and scenes achingly alive. . . . Her characters' struggles with motherhood and identity would be compelling in any era. (Entertainment Weekly)

From the first page, I was under the spell of Anna Solomon's emotionally engaging novel about the devastating choices we make and the unexpected consequences they bring. This is a fine literary tapestry woven with beautiful language, complex characters, and a precise probing of human desires and demons (Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times-bestselling author of The Invention of Wings)

Gorgeously moving . . . a dazzling exploration of the impact of roads untaken on motherhood, class, and gender. . . . Solomon expertly works on a large, mesmerizing canvas, with an almost dizzying array of characters, each moving the terrific drama of the book. . . . [She] renders each character so exquisitely complex, they could be the heroes of their own novels. . . . It's impossible to stop reading, because Solomon has made us care so much for all the characters, because she's fashioned a world so real, you can taste the salt spray and smell the heady fragrance of the ripe pears (Boston Globe)

Anna Solomon writes with a poet's reverence for language and a novelist's ability to keep us turning the page. Leaving Lucy Pear is a gorgeous and engrossing meditation on motherhood, womanhood, and the sacrifices we make for love (J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times-bestselling author of Maine and The Engagements)

With poetic prose but a larger understanding of the precarious world of 1920s New England, Solomon proves herself as one of the most striking novelists of the day (The Millions)

Penetrating. . . . Repeatedly opting for the less predictable outcome, Solomon reaches resolutions marked with the same reflective maturity as the rest of this solidly absorbing novel. Slow-movement storytelling: fully-fleshed, compassionate, and satisfying (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

Book Description

Through the near trees she could see the far ones in the orchard down below. Slowly, her eyes adjusted, and she saw the pears themselves, their waxy orbs glowing greenly in the three-quarter dark. Her mouth watered and Bea, embarrassed by this bodily secretion, turned her thoughts to her Plan.
Walk to orchard....Check inside paper sack: extra diapers, two bottles, four cans of Borden's evaporated milk, five twenty-dollar bills.
Set infant under most plentiful tree.
Run.

About this edition

• Publisher: Platinum Spotlight Series
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1683240944
• ISBN 13: 9781683240945
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 500