The title is a reference to the line "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" in Langston Hughes's poem "Mother to Son".
Fighting racism and sexism, Marion schools her girls in manners, English poetry and the need for an education; her elegant neighbour and rival (both women are in love with railway porter Edmund Thompson) teaches the children the ways of the street and their black cultural heritage.
Sarsfield recounts a story about the desire to survive, all the while depicting the cosmopolitan Montreal of the 1940s, a city inhabited by jazz musicians, socialites, artists and gangsters.
[citation needed] No Crystal Stair was one of the selected novels in the 2005 edition of Canada Reads, where it was defended by Olympic fencer Sherraine MacKay.
[3] The book received reviews from publications including Herizons, School Library Journal, Quill & Quire, and New York Amsterdam News.