The Price of a Child

 “The Price of a Child is a book seared by a sense of mission ... But there is nothing preachy about [Cary’s] narrative style. She is a powerful storyteller, frankly sensual, mortally funny, gifted with an ear for the pounce and ragged inconsequentiality of real speech and an eye for the shifts and subterfuges by which ordinary people get by. With The Price of a Child, Lorene Cary has produced a generous, sardonic, full-blooded work of fiction.”—Fernanda Eberstadt, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Cary’s exacting sensual description does more than lend credibility to her portrait of the age. It imparts to her writing an undercurrent of searching perception, and a fastidious element of psychological complexity.”—David Barber, Boston Globe
 
“A profoundly moving, evocative work that puts a fully realized human face on the issue of slavery and its consequences. Cary’s passionate, intelligent prose and her assured command of historical events as they sweep across individual lives recall Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. The Price of a Child marks the emergence of a powerful voice in American fiction.”—Paula L. Woods, Philadelphia Inquirer