A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(For mature audiences only!).
This book, set in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY, opens in the summer of 1912. Eleven-year-old Francie Nolan lives with her father Johnny, who is the son of Irish immigrants and an alcoholic singing waiter; her mother, the former Katie Rommely, who is the daughter of Austrian immigrants and a cleaning woman; and her year-younger brother Neely (Cornelius). It covers about the next seven years of Francie's life, including her schooling, relationships with neighbors, the death of her father from alcoholism at age 34, her jobs after graduating eight grade, the coming of World War I, and her love affairs, ending with her mother's remarriage.
I have heard of this book for much my life. It was on every high school reading list that I saw when I was in high school, though I never did read it then. A blurb on the back of my copy says, "A novel which was hailed as a potential classic on its first appearance in America." Certainly, there is a message in the book that, following the metaphor of the tree which could flourish even in the midst of the barren ground surrounded by concrete in Brooklyn, there could still be hope in one who was raised in the midst of poverty and despair. However, while this is a book ABOUT the coming of age of a child, it is not a book FOR children. It is what my elders when I was growing up would have called a "trashy book." There are numerous, rather blunt, references to sexual matters--girls engaging in horseplay with boys, a local shop owner who molested little girls, boys sleeping with girls, men and women making love, women having babies without marriage, men having a mistress, dirty jokes, etc. Francie's Aunt Sissy was married four times without ever bothering to get a divorce, and had numerous men in between. There is a scene where Francie herself is attacked by a pervert who is then shot by her mother.
Furthermore, the language is characterized by profanity, vulgarity, obscenities, taking the Lord's name in vain, cursing, swearing, and other kinds of crudities. It is generally said that the book is a thinly-veiled autobiography, and I suppose that the author felt that she had to include all this to be "realistic" and to show the squalor and difficulty of tenement life. However, while I finished the book to see how it would turn out, I cannot say that I enjoyed reading the book and I really have trouble recommending it to anyone. Reading through the book to find its message of hope is like rummaging through people's garbage just in hopes of finding something valuable.
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