No Crystal Stair

Lori A. Dunn is a teacher, instructional designer, and freelance writer
in New Westminster, British Columbia.

“No crystal stair” is a line from a poem by Langston Hughes. It
refers to the climb that a black person has to make to overcome racial
oppression. The stairs are rough and difficult, but they can be climbed
if you have the will. Set in the early 1940s, this story recounts the
experiences of the beautiful Marion Wilson, a widow who is trying to
raise her two daughters to be proud, intelligent black women. She works
two jobs and dreams of their going to university at a time when being
“colored” in Montreal put severe limits on what could be
accomplished. Her own pride forces her do it all on her own, eschewing
an offer of marriage from a well-off man who befriends her family. The
intriguing cast of characters includes the young man who rooms with the
family, the adopted orphan who joins them, and the White Russian ballet
teacher who live next to them with her own daughter.

The author has painted an informative picture of black life in Montreal
during World War II. Through her characters, we experience parts of the
Harlem Renaissance, the birth of jazz, the influence of World War II,
and the life of the redcaps on the cross-Canada rails. While racism is
an integral part of the characters’ lives, it is not treated as a
major theme of the book, but is approached with far more subtlety.
Mairuth Sarsfield writes with a funny and bittersweet freshness in a
novel that is ultimately about the possibilities of the human spirit.