A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

This book was on the classics shelf at Bismarck's used bookstore. I had heard of it, and the cover accolades confirmed that it was a classic. A hefty paperback at close to 500 pages, I let it sit around awhile before I took it on.

And the beginning was rough. While well-written, I enjoy books that take me away to a pleasant place. This book's beginning did not. Set in pre-World War I Brooklyn, Francie is a young girl making her way through poverty and deprivation with her family. The vignettes of taking scraps to the junkyard for a penny and saving it in a bank nailed down in the closet were vivid and real. I'm pretty sure the author grew up living much of these conditions. They are sobering. For a bright young girl to be hungry and cold yet be brave and forceful was inspiring.

There were many lessons here... Unconditional love for her alcoholic father who understood her in a way her mother did not... Listening to her own inner voice when her teacher told her her stories were sordid...Her growing understanding and respect for her mother...Her mother's honesty...and refusal to take charity. I wondered about this family in today's social setting. Would they be on welfare? Are there mothers like this anymore? Great that she didn't want to accept help, but would having her children be fed not be better? And maybe it was the struggle that made her children ultimately successful and resilient. I wondered about the illiteracy in the family...and how Francie overcame it. How her mother relied on her mother's wisdom to read a page of the Bible and a page of Shakespeare every day so her children would be educated. So much here that was wise and so much that was heart-breaking.

I also liked how the author didn't hit us over the head with her own answers. She just relates her story with amazing clarity and vividness and lets the reader draw my own conclusions. I like the openness of that approach. It was also a peek into a world I know little about, in a time and place in America that I know little about. I feel like there were hardships there and then that forged courageous people who had to rely on each other to survive. Not all were admirable. Some gave up, some turned to crime. But this family survived and I grew in my respect for each member of the family as the story went on in time.

A truly inspiring and wonderful book, if you like real characters (I do!) with real problems. I liked understanding Francie's thinking, too, and could relate to each stage of her life. Though our worlds are very different, the author caught authentic female angst and pluck that was true.

Another note...this was a white family. Race didn't seem to enter into this narrative at all. I wonder why... Was Brooklyn all white? Immigration from "the old country" ie, Ireland, Germany, Austria was a thread throughout, but race was never an issue. Perhaps in that time the racial world was very separate. Although it's interesting to me that this never came up on the streets or in public transportation or in school...maybe it was a white world there then...???

One final note...it's books like these that are so meaty and inspiring that make me NOT want to waste my time on more vapid reading like I've been doing lately. I need a good source of good lit! Maybe I need to browse the classics more often!