Shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008.
Prepare to enter a world hopefully most of us will never know. The story of a 12 year old girl, Baby, who has been brought up in the red light district of Montreal by her heroin addicted father. Matters get worse when he is taken in to hospital and later when he betrays his daughter further. Baby is a strong, intelligent character despite the hurdles she has faced in her young life and this novel is a fascinating and observant piece of writing.
Baby is twelve. Her mother died soon after she was born so she lives with her father – and his heroin addiction.
She’s grown up in Montreal’s red-light district, never staying anywhere long enough to call it home, and now Baby is losing the only constant in her life; her father. He’s been sent to hospital and she’s been forced into foster care. She longs for his return; other people’s families are no substitute for her own. Starved of affection, Baby is attracted to all the wrong people. And when her father betrays her and she is sent to a juvenile detention centre, she is more at risk than ever.
Baby’s survival rests on her gift for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness which fall into her lap. Poised on the threshold between childhood and adult life, she is bright, funny, observant and ultimately wise enough to realize that salvation rests in her hands alone.
Heather O’Neill is a contributor to this American Life and her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine. Her childhood was divided between Virginia with her mother, and Montreal with her father. She now lives in Montreal with her partner and her daughter.
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