Book #65: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Book #65: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

January 5, 2014


I found a copy of this book (in excellent condition, perhaps never even read before) in the closet at my little school. It then sat on my desk for a couple of weeks (during winter break). I snatched it up before I left on Friday; I had a feeling that this cold snap coming in would lead to a cancelation on Monday. I was right! This three-day weekend makes up for the fact that my district opened on the 2nd, and since I'm still on break from my graduate coursework, I am eager to spend my extra time getting ahead on my reading.

I've been aware of this book for quite a long time. I don't know why I never read it before; I certainly feel like, in spite of the length, this text would have been accessible to me when I was as young as 11 or 12, the same age as Francie, the main character, when the book opens. It starts with a day in her life, a summer day in Brooklyn, as she and her brother Neeley scrap together money to spend and save a bit, as Francie visits the library (reflecting on her love of books, and her disappointment in the disinterest of the librarian), and as she has an evening at home while her father Johnny prepares his only suit (a worn out tuxedo) to go out for a night of work as a singing waiter. After the first part of the book, the rest of the lengthy text tells the story of the family from before Francie was born (Johnny and her mother Katie's first meeting), to when Francie is preparing to move out of Brooklyn with her family, as she gets ready to leave for college in Michigan and her mother prepares to remarry a much more stable man (Johnny having drank himself to death). I felt like this book, by far Smith's most celebrated, was just about perfect.

Smith shows the best and worst of Brooklyn (circa 1900-1918); in the first few pages, I was thrown by the blatant anti-Semitism displayed by the Catholic and Protestant Brooklynites. I especially found this interesting because the book was published when World War II was going on, and Americans definitely knew what was happening to Jews in Europe. The anti-German attitudes expressed in the text (with an adolescent Francie at one point stating that she does not like Germans, and that they basically are ruthless in their pursuit of what they want...well, during her time, and the time that the book was published, that wasn't technically wrong regarding the country and its leaders but not necessarily the people themselves) are worth noting as well. What is interesting here is that Smith herself was of German descent (Francie was not; Johnny was Irish, and Katie was Austrian). I wonder if her family was harassed during World War I, the way that Germans in Brooklyn were harassed (through this was not a focal point in the text, there is one scene in which some German revelers on New Years are heckled by some Irishmen). Though it's clear that much of Francie's life is based on Smith's, this changes in detail make me consider how Smith's work, even in seemingly small ways, was affected by the political atmosphere of the time. Since I've been teaching a high school course on American History this year, I've become more interested in and aware of such things. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a best-seller in its time; the edition that I have, which includes some "extras" at the end, has an image of an advertisement promoting the purchase of War Bonds that was published in an early edition of the book. Just fascinating!

Some things about Brooklyn that Smith describes in the book, I think are still true today. Even back then, 100 years ago, Brooklyn was a large city by itself. Though Francie reflects that it has a small town feel that New York lacks (or maybe that was something that Smith said herself? I feel that Francie's appreciation for her hometown reflects that attitude). Brooklynites way back then had to worry about much of the same things that still concern them today, I well imagine: racially or ethically motivated violence, sex perverts and murderers. I mean, you can find that horrible shit anywhere today, of course, but it surprised me...I've always regarded "olden times" as being more innocent times. I guess where I live, that would be the case; I mean, I think of In Cold Blood, where a rural town was so innocent in the 1950's, until it was rocked by these murders. But in Brooklyn at that time, it would be a cause for alarm but not one that would take anyone as much by surprise. In one scene, Francie is accosted by a rapist and murder on the dark steps of her tenement home, and her mother proceeds to shoot him.

The people in Brooklyn, for the most part, are poor. Many of them are immigrants (this is before the "Great Migration," before there was a substantial population of black people and Hispanics in those places, I guess). Francie's parents both come from poor, uneducated immigrants, and neither of them reached the 8th grade themselves, having to leave school to work. Francie is forced into the same situation by the death of her father, and the birth of her younger sister Laurie. But Francie is fortunate; she's smart and shrewd. She first leaves her neighborhood school, full of mean children and abusive, disinterested teachers, and with the help of her father, is transferred to a nicer school several blocks over. I've noticed a theme of smart young characters leaving their situations and upgrading, and thereby giving themselves a better chance at success. The book drives the point home that education is important, that education is the key to success.

I wish that this was a book that I could share with my students, but I'm afraid that it was in the back closet for a reason. As I've noted, I have to be very very careful about what I use in my classroom. But I can at least teach them the lesson that the book tries to impart. I thought about my students, how many of them come from very difficult situations, and how many of them will have a label on them for a very long time for the mistakes that they've made. I want them to understand that with education, they can at least open up some doors for themselves. I imagine that the horrible teachers at Francie's first school, besides being sexually frustrated by their lack of options at the time, saw their students as being hopeless lost causes, as ignorant as their uneducated parents, and had long ago given up on them. That's sad. I don't work in the easiest teaching environment; when I explain to people where I work, I typically get a strange reaction. But while the future may already be bleak for some of the more (for lack of a better word) messed-up students, some of them have potential to make some contribution. And many of them want to. So I know that my responsibility is to give them some tools for making that happen, and helping them get the most out of their education while their in treatment. That's the kind of job that helps me to sleep well at night, that helps me to feel fulfilled. Even in this crazy messed up world, where kids can end up in such situations like my students have, or where young families like Francie's have to scrimp and save just to stay (often less than) adequately fed, I'm at least doing my small part to try to help things. I can't save the world, but I can contribute in my own small way.

The book ends with Katie preparing to marry Mr. McShane, a politician who was a self-man immigrant who'd been pining after her for years, but had waited until his sickly wife and her drunken husband had died and some time had passed before making his move. Life will be much easier for little Laurie than it was for her older brother and sister. Johnny's drinking had contributed to much of the family's issues. In spite of this, Francie loved her father. In truth, he wasn't a terrible person or anything. He loved his family; he was very lazy, though, and drank way too much. He gave all his wages to his wife, but spent all his tips on drinking (though I guess that was a family tradition among Katie's people, to let the working man keep his tips); he didn't take jobs frequently enough to keep the family well fed. But in spite of Laurie's obvious advantages early in life, Francie and Neeley still pity her. They found some joy in growing up with their beloved Papa, who loved to sing, and was so handsome and so friendly and well-loved by all. Yet Katie was forced to keep their building, and two others, clean to pay for their rent; she had to take odd jobs as well when Johnny wasn't working steadily. I found one section particularly interesting; entries from Francie's diary, kept when she was thirteen, frequent describe Johnny as being "sick." It is revealed in a later entry that Katie, reading the diary, made her change the word "drunk" to "sick" in previous entries. Brilliant.

I found the descriptions of the family's balancing of their little money to be interesting. I found it almost exciting, to see how they balanced it all out (sometimes unsuccessfully). Then I felt guilty; though I've been in situations (some not too long ago) where I haven't been able to make all the ends meet, I've never been in a desperate financial situation. Not desperate enough that I couldn't turn to someone for help. Still, to see that Francie and Neeley saw the good in it all as they were embarking on their new, and more privileged, lives, really showed that another message of the book is that money is not everything. It would have helped their situation, as Katie explains to her new fiance, but it wouldn't have made their lives better. Katie is a wise character, and hard-working. Though Francie doesn't get along with her, and knows that she loves her brother more, she sees that she is like her mother in all the right ways. Katie reflects at one point on a rich local family full of horrible people, and on a volunteer teacher who lives in squalor, and admits that the teacher has the richer, more fulfilling life. That's what makes her so determined to see her children educated, in spite of the odds.

I felt a connection with young Francie: her love of reading, and her general awkwardness around her peers. I also felt a connection with, and an admiration for, Aunt Sissy. For one thing, Sissy is my nickname in my family; it's been that since my teen years, when my younger half-brother couldn't pronounce my name. Sissy is the favorite aunt, and it's clear that Francie admires her. I get along very well with my nephews, and I like to think that they respect me the way that Francie always respected her aunt. I admire Sissy for her boldness, and for the fact that in a time when women were still pretty conservative, she was open about her sexuality. There's one scene where Sissy left a pretty box with the Nolan kids, advising them not to open it. The book doesn't outright state that the items in the box, which the children proceeded to tie to strings the put out the window for the whole neighborhood to see, were condoms, but it was somewhat implied (though I had to Google this to be sure). Sissy is shunned by her sisters for a time, but they eventually welcome her back, realizing that in spite of her moral failings (at least, as viewed in their conservative Catholic community), she had a good heart. Poor Sissy wanted a child, and after ten stillbirths from three different husbands, she proceeds to secretly adopt a child from a young girl who has gotten "into trouble" (it is later revealed that the child was her husband's very own). She later manages to have a baby who survives, having it in a hospital with a doctor (unheard of in the Rommeley family before that time). Sissy is also the first in the family to dismiss the popular negative view of Jewish people, as she enlists the aid of a Jewish doctor. Sissy, so loving and as generous as she could be in her own poor circumstances, is by far my favorite character in a book full of very likable characters. Hell, even Johnny is a likable, and also pitiable, character.

This book was an absolute delight to read; it's so vibrant and true. I regret that I was never interested in this book, always dismissing it. I think I would have loved it just as much, if not more, if I'd read it years ago.