Gloria Naylor

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY IRENOSEN OKOJIE''Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come'' Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, winner of the Women''s Prize for FictionIn post-World War II Brooklyn, on a quiet backstreet, there''s a little place that draws people from all over-not for the food, and definitely not for the coffee. An in-between place that''s only there when you need it, Bailey''s Cafe is a crossroads where patrons stay for a while before making a choice: Move on or check out?Patrons include Sadie, the ladylike alcoholic with a mania for cleanliness; Sweet Esther, who caters to unspeakable appetites in a nearby ''boarding house'', taking payment only in white roses; and Mariam, the Ethiopian child who may be the bearer of a miracle. Naylor''s breath-taking novel is an enthralling fusion of lives whose courage, mystery and humour suggest nothing less than a blues tapestry of America.''Gloria Naylor was one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. Every single one of her works was masterful, crafted with the kind of rare artistic brilliance that places her in extremely limited company . . . She holds a hallowed place in the canon, and also in hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits'' Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY IRENOSEN OKOJIEBy the bestselling author of The Women of Brewster PlaceWith its showcase homes and manicured lawns, an address in the wealthy Black American neighbourhood of Linden Hills is a symbol that you''ve made it. The ultimate achievement: a home on prestigious Tupelo Drive. Making your way downhill to Tupelo is irrefutable proof of your worth. But the farther down the hill you go, the emptier you become and the price of success may well be a journey down to the lowest circle of hell.As two young friends - poets from the wrong side of town - look to earn extra money for Christmas doing odd jobs in Linden Hills, their warmth, humour and disbelief exposes the hypocrisy of life on the ''right'' side of the tracks. Exploring a microcosm of race and social class, Gloria Naylor reveals the true cost of success for the lost souls of Linden Hills.''Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come'' - Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE''Naylor''s skill in weaving together culture, heartbreak, joy, magic, terror, laughter, pain, and love-which is to say, life-is extraordinary. There is something both mundane and cosmic about her writing that captures the human condition in a way that perhaps no other writer did or will'' - Robert Jones, Jr., author of THE PROPHETSNaylor has produced an ambitious novel that aspires to be nothing less than a contemporary reading of Dante''s ''Inferno'' ...One is quickly beguiled ... so gracefully does Naylor fuse together the epic and the naturalistic, the magical and the real - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times