The Pure Gold Baby

by Margaret Drabble

Jessica Speight, an anthropologist and writer living in London during the 1960s, decides to keep and raise Anna, a
special needs child. Jessica’s friend acts as the narrator, telling the story of Jessica’s life over the next forty years
as she struggles to nurture and protect her daughter, find satisfying relationships, and search for life’s meaning.
Drabble’s passion for family and the quest for meaning provide a powerful echo that will reverberate in every
reader. Told with wit, intelligence, and love, Drabble’s newest novel will have readers asking themselves “Did I
make the right choice?”

Questions

1. What is a pure gold baby? What did you think of the title before reading anything about the book? What
did you think after reading the jacket? Did your perception change after you finished the book?
2. In the opening two paragraphs, the narrator shares Jessica Speight’s sudden joy when she sees the
“special” African children. The question of fate and Jessica’s destiny become a focus. What role does
fate play in this novel?
3. We experience Jessica’s story from the perspective of her friend. Why do you think the author chose this
angle? Would employing the first-person point of view have been an equally good choice? Why or why
not? How would the story have been different?
4. “We lived in an innocent world,” the narrator states at the beginning of the story (9). What does she
mean? How does this statement apply to Jessica? How is your world the same as hers? How is it
different?
5. Jessica worries about Anna’s chances for success. People with birth defects or mental deficiencies have
always struggled to find acceptance. Has society’s view of them become more kind and helpful? What
examples can you offer to show how people with disabilities have succeeded? Are there any other books
you have read about children with disabilities? How did they differ from Drabble’s book in their
presentation of parents’ roles and the opportunities available to the kids?
6. Based on your reading, what is your opinion in the debate over whether “to educate special children in
integrated classes within the mainsteam system or by themselves in separate institutions” (53)?
7. Jessica states that “the camera . . . always lies. And colour photography cannot choose but to lie. Words
work harder than pictures; reading is harder than looking” (61). Do you believe Jessica? Which do you
think is more powerful: pictures or words? Why?
8. Jessica often mentions Wordsworth and comments on his use of the word idiot. Jessica thinks that the
phrases special needs and learning difficulties are acceptable but also that better phrases must exist,
especially for Anna. What better words or phrases can you suggest? Do words like these, labels for
people and their unique conditions, cause any unnecessary preconceptions? Explain. Why are people so
sensitive to words?
9. References to writers who had a sibling or child with special needs, like Jane Austen, William
Wordsworth, and Pearl S. Buck, add to the story. How do these references influence you? How do these
references affect your views of Anna and of Jessica’s attitude?
10. From Anna’s birth and every day after, Jessica worries about the possibility of Anna outliving her. Pearl
Buck, the author of The Good Earth, expressed the same fear in her journal when she wrote, “I would
 have welcomed death for my child and would still welcome it, for then she would be finally safe” (163).
How is Jessica’s fear different from any parent’s fear of losing a child?
11. The narrator describes the visit to Wibletts and the sight of the letter that William Wordsworth sent to
Felix Holden. The poetry of Wordsworth inspired Holden to help the “Simple-Minded.” What inspires
you to help others?
12. Drabble uses certain words and phrases, like “I lost my mother, I lost my father, and I am alone, alone,
alone” and “Uluntanshe. A wanderer with no aim in life,” as a poem or song might use a refrain: they link
memorable moments and find meaning in life. How successful are these refrains? What significant
meanings do they create?
13. Through the narrator, Drabble expresses the paradox of aging: “I don’t know why life seems emptier
when one is older, even when it is full. It thins out, like the hair of one’s head” (246). What creates this
paradox as we age? How does Jessica learn to cope and accept her fate? As she ages, her thoughts return
to the Professor. The narrator states that “she is beginning to have a sense of an ending” (210). Is this an
allusion to the book A Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes? Why does Jessica begin to question her life?
What causes us to question the past as we age?
14. The life of Jessica Speight is told not in chapters but in vignettes related by Jessica’s friend. These
vignettes connect us not only to Jessica and Anna but also to all of Jessica and the narrator’s friends. If
your friends wrote about your life, what would they reveal? Would different friends focus on different
aspects of your life?
15. Near the end of her life, Jessica returns to Africa, to the place where “a lifetime ago” her maternal instinct
was ignited by “the shoebill and the lobster-claw children.” “Time has come full circle, and the river
flows with time,” the narrator tells us (270). Willa Cather expresses a similar message in My Antonia:
“For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of
fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to
bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the
incommunicable past” (238). How are these quotations similar? Different? What experience in Jessica’s
past triggers her revelation about the present?
16. The author utilizes many allusions: “ . . . succumbed to his Ancient Mariner grasp” (89), “ . . . she is La
Belle Heaulmière” (141), and “ . . . it’s the heart of darkness” (279). How do these and other allusions
add depth to Jessica’s story?
17. Jessica tells her friend about the final connection she makes in Africa and how it would have been more
significant if it had occurred at a special place and time instead of by the pool at the Jacaranda. She
comments, “ . . . we cannot choose where our memories return to us or what may prompt them. We are
at the mercy. We believe there is a thread, a story, but we are at the mercy” (288). What is this
connection? How do people find closure in their lives? How does Jessica find closure? Does Drabble
suggest people need to find closure or does she provide Jessica closure for the narrative? Explain.
18. Why does Drabble not only begin and end with Africa but also focus on Africa’s history and culture
throughout the novel? How has Africa influenced Jessica?
19. Anna, the pure gold baby, provides direction for Jessica’s life. Through Anna, Jessica discovers the
meaning of love, responsibility, and humanity. What does Jessica learn about each of these topics?
20. Why doesn’t the narrator want to tell Jessica about her account of Jessica’s life? How do you think
Jessica would feel if she read the narrator’s version? What do you think of the author’s decision to present
Jessica’s story in this manner?