The Street

<p><i>From the time she was born, she had been hemmed into an ever-narrowing space, until now she was very nearly walled in . . . </i><br><br> New York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again. But in her struggle to earn a respectable living amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn. The first book by a Black woman to sell more than a million copies, <i>The Street </i>combines the pace of a thriller with an unflinching portrait of injustice and hope.<br><br><b>Introduced by TAYARI JONES</b><br><br><b>'The prose is clear, the plot is page-turning, the characters are utterly believable' CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE</b><br><br><b>'Like the human experience, this book is riddled with pain, but somehow powered by hope' TAYARI JONES</b><br><b><br>'I've recently had my brain re-wired by Ann Petry, and it's that exhilarating feeling of falling in love with one of your lifetime writers for the first time' BRANDON TAYLOR</b></p>