BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE STREET

With a new introduction by Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of Libertie

'Petry is the writer we have been waiting for . . . insightful, prescient and unputdownable' TAYARI JONES

'A masterpiece' NEW YORK TIMES

'A powerful and moving book . . . A book to watch' KIRKUS REVIEWS

It's past midnight, and thick fog rolls in from the river like smoke. Link Williams is standing on the dock when he hears quick footsteps approaching, and the gasp of a woman too terrified to scream. After chasing off her pursuer, he takes the woman to a nearby bar to calm her nerves, and as they enter, it's as if the oxygen has left the room: in the dim light, they can see that he's Black and she's white.

Link is a brilliant Dartmouth graduate, who, because of the lack of opportunities available to him, tends bar; Camilo is a wealthy, married heiress who has crossed the town's racial divide to relieve the tedium of her privileged life. Brought together by chance, Link and Camilo draw each other into furtive encounters that violate the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their times.

About the Author
Ann Petry (1908-1997), novelist and writer of short stories and books for young people, was one of America's most distinguished authors. Her first published story appeared in 1943 in the Crisis. She then began on her first novel, The Street, which was published in 1946 and for which she received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. Petry wrote two more novels, The Country Place and The Narrows, and numerous short stories, articles and children's books.

Reviews
Her work endures not merely because of the strength of its message but its artistry . . . Petry will always feel on time. Her kind of talent will always feel startling and sui generis: The music of her sentences, and their discipline; her unerring sense of psychology; the fullness with which she endows each character, which must be understood as a kind of love; the plots that commandeer whole hours and days . . . Her work endures not only because it illuminates reality, but because it harnesses the power of fiction to supplant it * New York Times *
Petry is the writer we have been waiting for, hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose . . . The Narrows is the story of a doomed interracial romance that proves that passion and prejudice are not mutually exclusive
Ann Petry's novels The Street and The Narrows are masterpieces of social realism - volatile but exacting, heartbreaking but often brutally funny . . . The Narrows is capacious, elliptical and immersive. Slowly and comprehensively, it envelops you . . . The scenes seethe with rage, and yet the book's sheer profusion makes it feel joyous and celebratory * Wall Street Journal *
A powerful and moving book, dealing with an almost proscribed subject . . . A book to watch * Kirkus Reviews *
Mainly about human beings, and the messes we sometimes make of our own lives * Yale Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780349013404
Author Ann Petry
Format Paperback
Page Count 528
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 400g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 126mm * 36mm