How do I make sure I vary the types of books I review? “Parade Magazine,” a small insert in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” of June 26, 2016, has helped me out immeasurably. The magazine asked award-winning author Ann Patchett to head up a group, which eventually included 17 booksellers, to comprise a list of the 75 best books over the last 75 years. The qualifications the group decided upon were the books would have to be printed in English and each decade starting from the 1940s to the 2000s would have to be represented.
The 1940s were fairly simple for me to choose from since that decade only included three selections. I read a short summary of each and selected A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, written in 1943. Page one of the forward says the book “is not the sort of book that can be reduced to its plot line. The best anyone can say is that it is a story about what it means to be human.”
This quote is so true. I read more than 100 pages of the nearly 500 page book and I was still trying to figure out the plot. However, after being introduced to the cast of characters, most of whom were from the poverty stricken Nolan family of Brooklyn, I began rooting for each of the Nolans and like most of the books that I have read, I started taking breaks near the end of the book because I didn’t want it to end. As you can tell, I would recommend it. However, I would rate it PG-13 because of some of the subject matter.
The book opens in 1912 with the main Nolan family: Johnny, the father who is a part-time waiter/singer at restaurants; Katie, the hard working, determined diminutive mother, who holds the family together; Francie, the smart “go-getter” at age 11; and her 10 year old brother, Neely. There is also Aunt Evy and Aunt Sissy. For interest of brevity, I would like to introduce you to just two characters, Francie (the main character) and Aunt Sissy because she is unlike any other character in the book or in most books.
The Nolan family lives in a third floor walk-up apartment in Brooklyn. They have a tradition that each day one page of the Bible is read as well as one page from Shakespeare. This serves Francie particularly well as she develops a passion for reading a book a day, many times when she is sitting on the fire escape, as she pretends to be sitting in a tree that started as a tree in cement and has grown to the third floor. Developing her intellect in this way allows Francie to hold various jobs, which she adapts to quickly, enabling her to contribute to her family’s living expenses so they have enough money to pay the rent and buy food.
Aunt Sissy reminded me of Dorothy, played by Bea Arthur in the Golden Girls, a television sitcom, which aired from 1985 to 1993. Sissy was brazen, kind and a problem solver, whether it be by hook or by crook. She was also madly in search of a companion for herself.
It took me a while to determine why this book was selected as one of the best in the decade of the 1940s, but now (at least in my thinking), I see why. This fictitious work is a reflection of things that are going on in the world today, even though the time period of the book started more than a century ago, I consider the book timeless. There is poverty, deceit to obtain one’s goals, favoritism, class discrimination, battles within the same class, violence, nastiness, addiction, affection and admiration of teachers.
As mentioned above, there is not a great plot. The success of the book depended on people and there interactions with one another. Would they help one another or not? Would they strive to be the best they could be considering their circumstances? Would they be rewarded for their efforts?
As I was finishing the last few chapters I kept asking myself: “What about the tree? But what about the tree? After all the book was named after it!” To my delight, the format of the book ended like the movie “Groundhog Day!”
Afterthought: Another reason why A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was so enjoyable for me was I could write another column about memories it brought to me about my life, supporting the timelessness of it.
Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers. Questions/comments may be directed to jeffreyhall77@comcast.net.
