If you want to know if you should read this book, I think the answer is yes.
It came out in 1943, and it's set at the turn of the century .. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a time when Williamsburg is very different from how it is now. In fact, it's set in Williamsburg a few years after the Williamsburg Bridge was built and the neighborhood experienced great change as it went from being an isolated, wealthy suburban area to being the overflow neighborhood for the immigrants of the Lower East Side.
In tone and feeling, it reminds me of a book about a Jewish family of girls on the Lower East Side that I read many years ago that was called something like "All of a Kind." It's a view of an urban immigrant experience that depicts a family that's poor but enjoys a lot of social connection, remembered fondly.
"A Tree" is a strange mixture of long narrative, brief scenes, unsentimental gaze, and something that is nostalgic or can easily be viewed that way.
Frannie Nolan, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, is the protagonist of the novel. She's somewhat isolated by her father's behavior and her mother's pride, but she's a great reader, a writer, and someone who likes to cast a very observant eye over everything, and everyone, around her.
She's very close to her father, who's a dreamy and charming man. He works intermittently as a singing waiter. He's an alcoholic and his health collapses before the end of the novel. Frannie's mother is a super, responsible for cleaning the building in which they receive free rent.
After Frannie's dad passes away, the loss of his income forces Frannie's mom to make some hard choices. She decides that she will send Frannie out to work instead of sending her to high school. Frannie is crushed; she's a very good student and she longs to go to high school. Katie, Frannie's mother, reasons that Frannie will succeed in finding a way to get education on her own. She sends her son to high school knowing that his interest is very low and that if she doesn't make it easy for him, he won't start high school, and he won't acquire the education later in life.
In real life, the author, Betty Smith, did not attend high school but was permitted, as a courtesy, to attend some classes at the college where her husband was a faculty member.
I asked a friend if she thought that my book group would like this book and she said "yes - it's a very romantic book." One definition of romantic, to me, is a world in which human beings are at the center of the world and their thoughts, actions and decisions matter very much. Frannie decides to read all the books in the library, and when she gets done she starts all over again. This probably has something to do with her success at the clipping agency where she reads faster than anyone else and is paid the most even though she lied about her age to get the job. Frannie has a teacher who encourages her to write. She has a grandmother who believes that education is important.
In a flashback to Frannie's birth, we learn that Frannie's mother, Katie, despaired of being able to care for her child. She asked her mother, Mary, how she could she care for her child, and how their condition was improved from living in Germany where they'd been very poor but no poorer than they were now. Mary replied that the chance to get an education made life in America better and that saving was the key to financial security. Saving and education are themes in the story.
Finally, Frannie's alcoholic father is presented as a dreamer, a romantic and a loving father - more a victim of his own weakness and their circumstances than as a guilty party.
This book was quite popular in my book group, although there was one person from New York who felt that the depiction of Brooklyn was not accurate because there was no mention of the many social services available to the poor at that time. I find myself wondering if accepting charity - and the judgment that may go with it - is especially un-romantic, and if that is why there's no mention of it in the book.
It came out in 1943, and it's set at the turn of the century .. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a time when Williamsburg is very different from how it is now. In fact, it's set in Williamsburg a few years after the Williamsburg Bridge was built and the neighborhood experienced great change as it went from being an isolated, wealthy suburban area to being the overflow neighborhood for the immigrants of the Lower East Side.
In tone and feeling, it reminds me of a book about a Jewish family of girls on the Lower East Side that I read many years ago that was called something like "All of a Kind." It's a view of an urban immigrant experience that depicts a family that's poor but enjoys a lot of social connection, remembered fondly.
"A Tree" is a strange mixture of long narrative, brief scenes, unsentimental gaze, and something that is nostalgic or can easily be viewed that way.
Frannie Nolan, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, is the protagonist of the novel. She's somewhat isolated by her father's behavior and her mother's pride, but she's a great reader, a writer, and someone who likes to cast a very observant eye over everything, and everyone, around her.
She's very close to her father, who's a dreamy and charming man. He works intermittently as a singing waiter. He's an alcoholic and his health collapses before the end of the novel. Frannie's mother is a super, responsible for cleaning the building in which they receive free rent.
After Frannie's dad passes away, the loss of his income forces Frannie's mom to make some hard choices. She decides that she will send Frannie out to work instead of sending her to high school. Frannie is crushed; she's a very good student and she longs to go to high school. Katie, Frannie's mother, reasons that Frannie will succeed in finding a way to get education on her own. She sends her son to high school knowing that his interest is very low and that if she doesn't make it easy for him, he won't start high school, and he won't acquire the education later in life.
In real life, the author, Betty Smith, did not attend high school but was permitted, as a courtesy, to attend some classes at the college where her husband was a faculty member.
I asked a friend if she thought that my book group would like this book and she said "yes - it's a very romantic book." One definition of romantic, to me, is a world in which human beings are at the center of the world and their thoughts, actions and decisions matter very much. Frannie decides to read all the books in the library, and when she gets done she starts all over again. This probably has something to do with her success at the clipping agency where she reads faster than anyone else and is paid the most even though she lied about her age to get the job. Frannie has a teacher who encourages her to write. She has a grandmother who believes that education is important.
In a flashback to Frannie's birth, we learn that Frannie's mother, Katie, despaired of being able to care for her child. She asked her mother, Mary, how she could she care for her child, and how their condition was improved from living in Germany where they'd been very poor but no poorer than they were now. Mary replied that the chance to get an education made life in America better and that saving was the key to financial security. Saving and education are themes in the story.
Finally, Frannie's alcoholic father is presented as a dreamer, a romantic and a loving father - more a victim of his own weakness and their circumstances than as a guilty party.
This book was quite popular in my book group, although there was one person from New York who felt that the depiction of Brooklyn was not accurate because there was no mention of the many social services available to the poor at that time. I find myself wondering if accepting charity - and the judgment that may go with it - is especially un-romantic, and if that is why there's no mention of it in the book.
