“A beautiful book. . . . There are phrases in here that will make you laugh out loud, and others that will stop your heart. A definite triumph.” — David Rakoff, author of Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish

From Heather O'Neill, the Giller-shortlisted author of Daydreams of Angels and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, a heartbreaking and wholly original novel about a young girl fighting to preserve a bruised innocence on the feral streets of a big city

Baby, all of thirteen years old, is lost in the gangly, coltish moment between childhood and the strange pulls and temptations of the adult world. Her mother is dead; her father Jules is always on the lookout for his next score. Baby knows that “chocolate milk” is Jules’ slang for heroin and sees a lot more of that in her house than the real article. But she takes vivid delight in the scrappy bits of happiness and beauty that find their way to her, and moves through the threat of the streets as if she’s been choreographed in a dance.

Soon, though, a hazard emerges that is bigger than even her hard-won survival skills can handle. Alphonse, the local pimp, has his eye on her for his new girl; he wants her body and soul—and what the johns don’t take he covets for himself. At the same time, a tender and naively passionate friendship unfolds with a boy from her class at school, who has no notion of the dark claims on her—which even her father, lost on the nod, cannot totally ignore. Jules consigns her to a stint in juvie hall, and for the moment this perceived betrayal preserves Baby from terrible harm—but after that, her salvation has to be her own invention.

Channeling the artlessly affecting voice of her thirteen-year-old heroine with extraordinary accuracy and power, O’Neill’s dazzles with a novel of extraordinary prescience and power, a subtly understated yet searingly effective story of a young life on the streets—and the strength, wits, and luck necessary for survival.

HEATHER O’NEILL is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her most recent novel, When We Lost Our Heads was a #1 national bestseller and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. Her previous works include The Lonely Hearts Hotel, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads, as well as Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams Of Angels, which were shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. She has won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there today.

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“A vivid portrait of life on skid row.” — People

“A nuanced, endearing coming-of-age novel you won’t want to miss.” — Quill & Quire (Canada)

“Vivid and poignant.... A deeply moving and troubling novel.” — Independent (London)

“A beautiful book, all the more remarkable because its harrowing tale is (virtuosically) told without a trace of self-pity or bathos. There are phrases in here that will make you laugh out loud, and others that will stop your heart. A definite triumph.” — David Rakoff, author of Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish

“O’Neill is a tragicomedienne par excellence…. You will not want to miss this tender depiction of some very mean streets.” — Montreal Review of Books

“A poignant tale…. O’Neill brings the setting to life.” — OK! (five stars)

“O’Neill somehow infuses her troubling story with a kind of heartbreaking innocence…. She is a wonderful stylist and the voice she has created for Baby is original and altogether captivating.” — Booklist

“A winsome debut novel.” — Kirkus

“Baby’s precocious introspection feels pitch perfect.... Tear-jerkingly effective.” — Publishers Weekly

“Dreamy prose.... Baby’s unique voice and the glimmer of hope provided by her intelligence and imaginative spirit live on in the mind long after you have closed the book.” — Waterstones Books Quarterly (London)

“A disturbing, heartbreaking novel… redeemed by a powerful voice, vivid characters and gritty realism. This is a stunning book from a first-time author.” — RebelHousewife.com