![]() ![]() It’s there that she meets William Pride Jr., a handsome, charming medical student whose attention to her seems almost like a dream-until she meets his family. She’s already in college, at Howard University in Washington, and happily starting to pursue a career as an archivist in the school’s library. Eleanor Quarles, the book’s other main character, is a few years older than Ruby. Distraction strikes, though, in the person of Shimmy, the son of Aunt Marie’s Jewish landlord, who falls madly in love with Ruby despite her efforts to remind him of the perils of interracial romance in Philadelphia in 1949. Her mother is indifferent, her father absent, but Ruby has her own determination and the warm support of her Aunt Marie, a nightclub performer who takes the girl in when her mother kicks her out. She’s only 14, but she’s already set herself on the path to her dream as a student in a demanding special program that she hopes will earn her a college scholarship. Ruby Pearsall, one of the two main characters of this historical novel, wants to become a doctor. Two ambitious young Black women struggle with the consequences of unplanned pregnancies in post–World War II America. ![]()
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