(Sorry, as usual, that this post is up so late.)
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
By Betty Smith
We read from pages 5 – 54. This is entirety of “Book 1″; which essentially means part 1.
Characters:
Francie Nolan. 11 year old girl, Irish-American. Loves to read. She is very sensitive and observant, Her family is very poor, and consists of Neeley Nolan, Johnny Nolan, and Katie Nolan. She likes Johnny best, even though she knows he is irresponsible. Christian.
Neeley Nolan: Francie’s 10 year old brother. Slightly disagreeable, but kind at heart. Has a lot of full-of-themselves ten year old boys as friends.
Katie Nolan: Francie’s mother, maiden name Rommely. She is 29, with black hair, brown eyes, and a “nice shape. Slight and pretty. Works very hard, cleans floors. Very logical. Makes as much as she can with what she has. (Which isn’t much.) Meet Johnny when she was 17 and working at the Castle Braid factory. He was dating her best friend.
Johnny Nolan: Francie’s father. Blond hair, devil-may-care attitude. Well-known as a drunk, but handsome and lovable all the same. Sings all the time, especially when he comes home. Likes to hear himself talk. Dresses very well, if cheaply. Does not have a regular job, but works as a singing waiter once in a while. Meet Katie when he was 19, and dating her best friend.
Aunt Sissy: Katie’s sister. Has the reputation of a very “loose” woman. 35, already married 3 times, and has given birth to 10 children, dead. Works in a rubber factory, has black curly hair. Lives with her current husband. Loves children and people, and Francie loves her for that.
Aunt Evy: Another sister of Katie. Fun-loving and comedic. Married to a man called Willie, who is thin and dark, and plays the guitar even though one of his fingers is missing, and fights with his horse Drummer.
Summary: We begin with a description a tree growing, obviously in reference to the title. This particular tree “likes poor people” and only grows in their districts – in this case, Brooklyn – this tells us about Francie and her family, because there is one growing over her fire escape. We then meet Francie, who is 11, and very excited because it is a Saturday in summer. People get paid, and have fun on Saturday. Her Saturday begins with a trip to the junkyard with her brother Neeley, after having hoarded things like rags, bits of metal, paper, foil, and rubber. At 9 am they, and many other Brooklyn kids, head out to the junkyard, and are taunted by those coming back already, even though they are in the same situation. There is a lot of shame in that. The junkyard man likes girls better, so Francie goes in and gets an extra penny for not flinching as he pinches her cheek. The other money Neeley divides into half for the bank, and one quarter each for the two kids. He heads into a “boy’s” candy shop, whereas Francie goes into a different one, where she lives vicariously through a friend Maudie as she buys a “prize bag” – so Francie is satisfied enough and saves her 5 pennies for pink-and-white peppermint wafers from the 5 and dime store.
She head home, walking through “Jew Town” and thinking about things and jobs, and babies. After reaching home, we meet Katie (”Mama”), who is overworked, but very pretty. They discuss money, and decided in intricate detail what to buy for lunch. Francie goes out and haggles for some buns and sliced tongue. There is a description about how coffee is their main luxury, and that Francie loves to smell it, and then have the ability to waste it, because it is the only thing she can waste. Francie later goes out to get bread, which is a seriously popular and crowded thing to do when you’re getting for cheap. She has to fight to be able to do it. She then has a slight panic attack when she sees an old man and thinks about how pointless and lonely and sad it must be to be old.
She follows Neeley out of the house while he walks with his friends, and the 10 year old punks halfheartedly terrorize some small Jewish boy. After she gets bored with their taunts and self-confident boasts, she heads to library, where she goes everyday to check out a book in alphabetical order. She dreams of having a library, and deals with a snippy librarian who refuses to look at her because she hates children. Francie then goes home, anxious to read, and arranges her peppermint wafers, books, water, and self on her fire escape and reads. She also observes the people and things around her, as she is unseen behind the tree that grows around the fire escape. Some boys come to torment a horse that lives next door, but the groom, a nice young man named Frank, chases them off. Frank is also propositioned by a woman called Flossie in whom he has no interest in.
Johnny Nolan, he father, comes home, singing as usual. He has a job that night as a singing waiter for a wedding, and is very cheery as Francie irons his apron and he chatters about the Union that he joined, and is very proud of. Francie once went with him to Union headquarters, and hears people talking about how much of a drunk he is. She is pained, but then happy, because she sees how much the people around him love him. She then returns to the present where Johnny is ranting about how he can’t get a job, no one believes in him and that’s why he’s a drunk. But when he sees how sad she looks, he perks up and hugs her, and then asks her to fetch him some disposable shirt fronts for his job that night. After getting ready, he looks very dapper, even in his slightly worn tuxedo. Francie is very proud of him, even though he is unreliable, and loves him very much.
After sending him off on a trolley, she visits the desperate woman who propositioned Frank; Flossie. Flossie works in a factory turning gloves inside out. She often brings work home to do more of it, because her brother is dying of consumption. Francie goes to talk to him, and he is very nice, though he keeps talking to someone who isn’t there. He then gets upset, and they have to leave him alone. Francie goes to look at the dresses Flossie makes and remakes for a ball she goes to every Saturday. They all have a right sleeve, because Flossie had fallen into a wash boiler of scalding hot water when she was a child, and her arm was wither and purple, so she always hid it.
Francie’s mum then brings home Aunt Sissy. This is the wild and slightly promiscuous sister whom Francie loves. They have returned from seeing a show, and chatter excitedly. After Sissy leaves, there is a discussion on food. Francie describes in pages what her mother can do with stale bread and ground meat, and how wonderfully they eat, considering. After talking a little more about Jews – there is an old man who sells pickles to Francie – it is time for Neeley and Francie to go out to buy the weekend meat. They are to go to different places for the meat and the bone, and have very specific instructions so they are not hoodwinked and can get the best possible for the money they have. This anger the first butcher, because he is trying to sell Francie days-old meat, but she will not let him. Francie handles all the buying of the food, and Neeley (the boy) is merely there for moral support.
After supper, Maudie (Francie’s friend) comes round to go to confession with Francie. Maudie lives with two maiden aunts who make funeral veils because she is an orphan. Francie goes through confession and absolution, and then says her penance, and then meets Maudie outside. Francie promises to call on her, and then returns home.
One of Katie’s other sisters, Aunty Evy is there with her slightly pathetic husband. He is playing the guitar, though he is missing a finger, and thus keeps the beat by banging on it when he can’t play that note. He feels slightly pathetic, and whines a bit, and thus, Evy takes him home
Before the kids go to sleep, they read a page of Shakespeare and a page of the Bible, which is a rule. By 11, the kids and Katie are all in bed. (A bit late for 10 and 11, mayhap.) Francie hears the people outside dragging their feet, there are people walking around and a baby crying, and in a downstairs flat a drunken man is criticizing his wife and her “wicked life”.
At two in the morning, Johnny returns, singing, and Katie gets the door for him. He has returned with food spoils from the wedding, and everyone gets up (at 2 am) to eat it, even though they don’t like half of it. Neeley goes back to bed, Katie and Johnny talk in the kitchen, and Francie watches a girl across the street with her boyfriend. They are embracing for a long time before her father comes down and chases the boy away. She then sees someone called Mr. Tomony come home from the upper part of town. He is very rich and fashionable, and no one knows why he lives in this area. Francie determines to follow him one day, and then shudders at the thought of sleeptime, because she always here a couple quarreling, and then the woman crying. But since it is Saturday, she is allowed to sleep on chairs in the front room, and not have to hear them through the airshaft. So she listens to Katie and Johnny reminisce about when they meet.
Wow. My hands hurt. That was a rather long summary. Sorry about that guys.
Emma
