Bailey's Cafe
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WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY IRENOSEN OKOJIE
'Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come' TAYARI JONES
'A virtuoso orchestration of survival, suffering, courage and humour' New York Times Book Review
In postwar Brooklyn, on a quiet backstreet, there's a little place that draws people from all over - not for the food, and definitely not for the coffee. An in-between place that's only there when you need it, Bailey's Cafe is a crossroads where patrons stay for a while before making a choice: Move on or check out?
There's Sadie, the ladylike alcoholic with a mania for cleanliness; Sweet Esther, who caters to unspeakable appetites in a nearby 'boarding house', taking payment only in white roses; and Mariam, the Ethiopian child who may be the bearer of a miracle. Naylor's breath-taking novel is an enthralling fusion of lives whose courage, mystery and humour suggest nothing less than a blues tapestry of America.
'Gloria Naylor was one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. She holds a hallowed place in the canon, and also in hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits' ROBERT JONES, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets
'Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come' TAYARI JONES
'A virtuoso orchestration of survival, suffering, courage and humour' New York Times Book Review
In postwar Brooklyn, on a quiet backstreet, there's a little place that draws people from all over - not for the food, and definitely not for the coffee. An in-between place that's only there when you need it, Bailey's Cafe is a crossroads where patrons stay for a while before making a choice: Move on or check out?
There's Sadie, the ladylike alcoholic with a mania for cleanliness; Sweet Esther, who caters to unspeakable appetites in a nearby 'boarding house', taking payment only in white roses; and Mariam, the Ethiopian child who may be the bearer of a miracle. Naylor's breath-taking novel is an enthralling fusion of lives whose courage, mystery and humour suggest nothing less than a blues tapestry of America.
'Gloria Naylor was one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. She holds a hallowed place in the canon, and also in hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits' ROBERT JONES, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets
- Published: May 14 2026
- Pages: 336
- ISBN: 9780349016191
Press Reviews
- Los Angeles Times
Told in contrasting shades of harsh, comic and magic realism ... Crackles with passion and wit ... An unforgettable successor to Ellison's metaphor of the invisible man, and as incandescent
- New York Times Book Review
A virtuoso orchestration of survival, suffering, courage and humour
Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come.
- New York Newsday
A powerhouse of a novel . . . It is a book with something of a comic Ellisonian or Faulknerian rhythm, a defiantly hopeful stance. Bailey's Cafe absorbs us in the mastery of its telling.
- People
A collective blues performance in prose - a lyrical remembrance and triumph over personal catastrophe . . . A sublime achievement
Gail Caldwell
Boston GlobeA cantata sung by several voices. This mix of myth, history and mysticism ... offers a sensibility as rich in potential as that of the Latin American magical realists ... Moving and memorable
Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, THE PROPHETS
Irrefutably, Gloria Naylor was one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. Every single one of her works was masterful, crafted with the kind of rare artistic brilliance that places her in extremely limited company. She is likely best known for her National Book Award-winning debut work, The Women of Brewster Place, but that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Whether the divine Bailey's Cafe, the haunting Linden Hills, or the exquisite Mama Day (one of my favorite novels of all-time), Naylor's skill in weaving together culture, heartbreak, joy, magic, terror, laughter, pain, and love-which is to say, life-is extraordinary. There is something both mundane and cosmic about her writing that captures the human condition in a way that perhaps no other writer did or will. Her work is, for me, a shout, a praisesong, a hosanna, a hallelujah, a Black fist in the air; àse! She holds a hallowed place in the canon, and also in hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. She was one of the blessed ones