A Little Raw on Monday Mornings Author:Robert Cormier As is so often the case, Gracie had not counted on the results of her one-night fling: a widow with three children, and now she was pregnant. — Gracie's tenement on Anzio Street is permeated by a kind of Monday -morning blue. Yet, it is alive with all the vitality and questions that only a family always on the brink of economic an... more »d emotional crisis can experience. There is, too, Gracie's mother, with her evening news on TV the focal point of her life; her deep love for Gracie concealed beneath the need to be "hard"; an ability she has also tried to instill in her daughter. She is a figure alive with a depth and austerity that make her a memorable and evocative character. And Bert, the floor-boy in Gracie's factory, and over-forty floor-boy with a nervous intensity and the annoying mannerisms that make it even more difficult for Gracie to find in him a knowledge of the kinds and the ways of love.« less