01.25.08
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Since I have just spent two or so weeks in Brooklyn, it is fitting that when I arrived home to London a copy of Betty Smith’s classic novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was waiting on my doorstep. It was a BookCrossing copy, and had come to me from the US via Canada and the UK and will be winging its way to Portugal next.
This is the tale of the Francie Nolan and her family, growing up poor in early 20th century Brooklyn. It’s a portrait of the poor people of Brooklyn and of Francie herself, an intelligent, imaginative child. The dogged determination of the tree growing up towards the sunlight, no matter what the obstacles, is a poignant metaphor for Francie’s coming of age. The writing has a deft but light touch and interesting in the way that it does not progress in a strictly linear fashion.
It reminded me a fair bit of Ruth Park’s The Harp in the South, which is set in the slums of inner-city Sydney during the Great Depression. It’s also about a poor Irish immigrant family in the new world and the challenges and prejudices they face, although it’s set about 20-30 years later than A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and in a different city, on a different continent.
The setting is Brooklyn, mostly Williamsburg and a bit of Greenpoint in north Brooklyn. This area is now very trendy, populated with young urban hipsters and also a large Hasidic Jew population. I spent a little time there and this was where the fabulous Queen’s Hideaway restaurant is. However, I stayed mostly in south Brooklyn, around the Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens area.
This is part of my challenge to read the top 100 books of the 20th century. All previous entries are on this site, and also on a dedicated site Century of Books. I’ve read 15 from the list since I started and I’m now at 40, with 60 to go.
