Leaving Lucy Pear

Whew, what a complicated and twisty tale from a land I love - Gloucester, MA. The novel, set in 1917, begins with an accidental pregnancy and draws in a large Irish family and it's heroic matriarch, Emma, along with a wealthy Jewish family and their errant daughter. There's also a local politician whose marriage to a granite quarry owner's daughter turns miserable when they are unable to have a child. So there's one child too many and one too few, and although there's no direct swap, each circumstance impacts all three families. Told in five points of view, and with nine Murphy children, it's a bit tough to keep track, but the author gets deeply inside each head and tells each truth very potently. Lucy Pear, the accidental child, is a show more wonder: "She wasn't old enough yet to know that having choices could be as hard as not having them." There is room for a sequel, hopefully, as Lucy is only 10 at the novel's close. show less

A baby is left by a pear tree and adopted by the Murphy’s, a family of Irish “pickers” who raid the pear trees on a regular basis, arriving by boat in the middle of the night. Beatrice Haven, wealthy, Jewish, and the baby’s unwed mother, is distraught at the thought of giving the child to an orphanage and knowing of the Murphy’s evening visits, sneaks out of the house, leaves her infant girl at the base of the tree and hopes she’s found and treated well by her new family. Ten years later and now Beatrice Cohn, childless and a public figure in the women’s temperance movement, cares for her uncle Ira in the same home and remains haunted by her past. Unbeknownst to Bea, her daughter lives not too far from her and is being show more raised by Emma Murphy, her uncle’s nurse. The child is called Lucy Pear. This is not only Lucy’s story, but also Emma’s and Bea’s, two mothers and a young girl, caught up in a web of secrets and buried truths. The setting for Leaving Lucy Pear is the period of the Prohibition Movement, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, a time of general mistrust of anything or anyone deemed “foreign.” Anna Solomon has written an engaging, human novel of love, loss and family. show less

Fascinating story of a young woman who gives up her illegitimate child and the woman who finds the baby and adopts her. From very different backgrounds in a small community the women are connected by a businessman, but also by the demands of prohibition and the limitations of their lives as women. The baby, Lucy Pear, has her own agenda, and is desperately saving to leave. Compelling and touching, with no easy answers.

The writing is achingly beautiful. It is not so much the story but about how well this story is told.

This novel, set in 1920s New England, opens with a scene in which a teenage girl named Beatrice leaves her baby in a pear orchard. The novel traces the fates of the characters touched by this decision, from Beatrice and her parents to the baby and the family that adopts her. Through the stories of all these characters, Solomon explores themes of assimilation, Jewish identity, class, family, and, perhaps most centrally, motherhood.

"Leaving Lucy Pear" by Anna Solomon was another find at the semi-annual "Friends of the Library" used book sale. The synopsis sounded interesting, and the plot started off, with promise. However, it quickly declined from there. The storyline slowed to a snail's pace, going nowhere fast. The characters quickly lost their way, with boring dialogue. I suffered halfway through, before I finally read the last chapter. Great decision on my part, not worth the time and effort.

The story takes place in 1920's Prohibition-era Massachusetts. It follows the story of a wealthy Jewish mother, Bea, who leaves her newborn in a pear orchard for an Irish family to find and raise. As the child Lucy Pear grows up, it is apparent to all that she wasn't born into her new family. The plot traces the lives of both mother and daughter, and how they come to meet again.

Great Book Club title, so much to talk about.