Full Closure: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”: Book Five (Chapters 55-56)

Please click on key word A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for previous installments in this series.

I think it is imperative to find out as much as possible about one’s heritage, to examine it with truthfulness regardless of whether it hurts or not. They say history is doomed to repeat itself when people are ignorant of it. The same thing goes for families. Francie is an example of someone who came ahead a stronger and wiser person because of her clear-headed decisions made in full knowledge of where she has come from.

Francie comes just short of saying that her mother’s marrying her father was a mistake. Then she very nearly steals a man from another woman, just like her mother. She falls head over heels for a young man who has already said he is engaged, but that he plans to call it off. He says he wants to be intimate with her before going to serve his country. She says no, but has second thoughts about her decision when she finds out he has married his fiancé after all.

I found her conversation with her mother to be very interesting. It is wonderful that she is able to share her emotional conundrum with Katie, and that Katie can be so understanding. Francie knows that waiting for marriage is best, and promises to do so, but wants to know if she did the right thing in this instance. As a woman, her mom says, she did not. She missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

But on denying herself that, she also eliminated a lifetime of regret that could come from either stealing another woman’s man, giving herself away before finding her lifetime partner, or possibly becoming pregnant or contracting a disease. She did the rational and moral thing at the time, rather than follow her emotions, which is what her mother did when she set about to steal Johnny from her girlfriend. This is what sets her apart from her mother and what will eventually allow her to find a true love that will last.

Francie gives up the passion for Lee in exchange for a more quiet and respectful romance with Ben. They do share the same kind of shy smile, and I do think that Francie was initially attracted to Ben, but he did not “need” her enough to pay her any attention for so long that she found love elsewhere with Lee. The book leaves it up in the air whether she will settle on him or not.

Has Katie found true love in Sergeant McShane? It is hard to believe that one could love from afar as they seemed to begin to do when they first met. They would see each other randomly in public and each kept the other in his or her thoughts as the health of their spouses deteriorated. They have a physical attraction for each other, and can see the qualities that each had to offer. This is a more rational type of love, one that will trust on time to build.

As Francie says goodbye to her old neighborhood, the book comes full circle back to many of the particulars described in the beginning of the book: the tree, the librarian and her bowl of seasonal flowers, the prizes at Cheap Charlie’s, and the little girls watching the big girls get ready for their dates. At the end she says “Goodbye Francie” to the girl across the street, although her name is Florrie. (In book one, as a small girl she would watch Flossie across the street.) The last sentence is: “She closed the window.” She has had full closure and can continue her life – a life that she herself will build.

I hope you have enjoyed my reflections on this novel, whether or not you have read it or plan to. I may have more thoughts to ponder after meeting with my Long Island book buddies. “A Tree in Brooklyn” has become a commonly used metaphor in American life. In America, you are what you make your life to be.

Growing Up Too Fast: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”: Book Four (Chapters 43-54)

Please click on key word A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for previous installments in this series.

In our present time when high school is a given and adolescence a time for teenagers to fool around, hang out, and be eased into adult responsibilities, the story of Francie’s sudden growing up is a little shocking. She finally gets to cross the Williamsburg Bridge to work in the city at the age of fourteen, pretending that she is sixteen. She is disappointed in both the city and the life of working with adults. Recognizing how much this world is changing her, she says that if she does not enter high school within one year she will be too old for it.

There is an important scene in which the family attends mass on Christmas morning, “for the repose of Johnny’s soul”. She is wearing fancy lace underwear that she has bought herself, and regrets the decision because she is very cold. She dwells on the details of the decorations in the church, as well as the symbolism they represent. She believes “with all her heart” in the Holy Eucharist. She loves her religion for its beauty and mystery. She is sorry for sometimes saying she doesn’t believe in God, because she does, and she wishes she could be a better Catholic. She has truly come to peace with both God and Johnny’s death.

Another moment worth remembering is the headline declaring war in 1917. She is working as a newspaper reader and knows this moment will change everyone’s life. The way she purposely stamps this headline into her mind shows she truly has the mind of a writer.

On New Year’s Eve, Katie tests her children by offering them alcohol as a toast. She wants to see if they can be trusted to use the substance wisely. They recognize it for what it is, take it, and say they don’t like it. Then they share a warm moment on the roof. This is important because it shows the children can value their father’s soul and yet not repeat his mistakes.

Aunt Sissy gives birth to a healthy baby, after having ten stillbirths. This is her first baby born in a hospital, and the first time she hears the word “oxygen”, which saves the newborn’s life. I had to wonder if those first ten babies could have been saved by oxygen as well. How sad for her – and how wondrous that she can finally have happiness! She turns into a whole new person, becoming a devout wife after living as a flirt her entire adult life. Francie misses the old Sissy in a way, but has to be happy for her. (I thought back to when she dislikes the quiet, thoughtful man that Johnny became when he was not drinking. We truly do become accustomed to our miseries.)

It was hard to believe that Katie cannot find a way to send Francie to high school. She has to send one of the children to work, and chooses to send Johnny to school because he doesn’t want to go to school. This strikes Francie as unfair, but Katie explains that she knows Francie will find a way to attend school because she wants it so much. Katie is very smart but very tough!

Francie does find a way, by attending summer college courses. (I felt so proud of her!) She has found a women’s college where she can go to school for free. She is studying her brother’s high school textbooks so that she can pass the college entrance course.

When Sergeant McShane proposes to Katie, it is like a breath of fresh air for the family. They will never have to worry about money or security again. Katie truly does love him, and accepts for only romantic reasons. I thought back to Francie’s disgust of plays in which a hero comes to the rescue at the last minute. He is offering to pay for the children’s college after she has already found a way to send herself. She does not have to rely on this hero – but it is nice that he came, after all!

Francie and Neely pity their sister, Annie Laurie McShane, because she will grow up privileged and miss out on all the “fun” they had!

(I’ll leave the bit of romance experienced by Francie to the next installment.)

Follow me as I explore the rest of this novel, whether or not you have read it or plan to. “A Tree in Brooklyn” has become a commonly used metaphor in American life. In America, you are what you make your life to be.

Family Pride: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”: Book Three (Chapters 15-42)

Please click on key word A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for previous installments in this series.

Francie is made to feel shame in many social arenas. The doctor comments that she and her brother are dirty. A girl whom she admires for being chosen to beat erasers spits on her. The teachers ignore her and she is forced to wet her pants because she is not allowed to use the restroom. Referring to stories she has written about her father, her teacher tells her that she should not write about “sordid” things, and she stops handing in English assignments; she receives a C in English as a result. Francie is saved from the ultimate shame by her mother, who shoots a rapist before he is able to harm her.

She is particularly conscious of the shame others are made to feel, as in Joanna, the teenage mother who proudly showed her baby around, only to have the local mothers throw stones at her. Her brassy Aunt Sissy is also gossiped about, so much so that they are forced to move. She knows that she is not a “bad woman”, and her father points out to her that even a street walker is not bad; she has been brought low by life circumstance.

Although she has inherited a certain degree of pride shown by her mother in certain things, Francie will not refuse to stoop to lying or taking charity if she really wants something. In one case, she takes a pie offered by the teacher, saying she wants it for a “poor family”, and eats it herself on the way home from school; she is caught. In another, she lies and says her name is Mary, so that she can receive a doll destined for a “poor girl named Mary”; she confesses to her mother and finds that her first name really is Mary! A teacher teaches her an important lesson on how she can write about a desired ending, while telling the truth in real life.

But she feels pride in her heritage: her parents are “real” Americans because they were born in Brooklyn! She can read, and she knows she can write well. She hates perfectly written endings wherein someone comes in and saves another from their situation. This seems to foretell an ending for the novel in which she saves herself from a life of poverty through her own hard work. She is strong, and with her brother is able to withstand the cruel throwing of the Christmas tree in order to bring home a large tree for free.

The entrance of Sergeant McShane, as well as the deteriorating health of Johnny, makes us think that he might be a future second husband for Katie. This would improve the economic situation of the family and bring up their social stature as well. But what about Francie’s strong aversion to depending on a hero to save one at the last minute? We are left wondering as to how things will turn out.

While constantly struggling, both parents do their best to get them the little things that will help them to get ahead in life. Her mother finds a way to get them all piano lessons. (The piano was left in their apartment by the previous tenant, who could not afford to have it moved.) Her father does his part by writing a letter stating that she has moved, so that she can go to school in a nicer part of town. This makes a big difference in the way she sees the world. Suddenly it is bigger and just a little kinder and prettier.

The influence of teachers on a child’s state of mind cannot be overlooked. There are nice and happy music and art teachers who travel from school to school and treat all students fairly. And then there are hardened “old maids” – mostly because married women were not allowed to teach back then – who seem to be absolutely heartless. They shower all their favors on the pretty rich girls and ignore the “unwashed” masses.

On the point of germs, it is both funny and horrifying to hear how their mother kept them free of both lice and disease-causing germs. She would wash Francie’s hair in kerosene and make her wear necklaces of garlic to school! Hence her only friends are the books she borrowed from the library.

When Johnny dies, her mother makes sure the cause of death is written as “pneumonia” only, and not “alcoholism”, although both were going to be written on the death certificate. This is a point of pride for her. But Betty Smith is setting the record straight. Why? She wants the truth to be told, and thinks that dignity can still be preserved without hiding the ugliness of her parents’ struggles. In fact, if a family continues to bury their secrets, they can never learn from them. This is another point in which she and her mother differ on the issue of “pride”.

The family situation goes from bad to worse when Johnny dies, as Katie is pregnant and must find a way to support three children now, while not able to take on more work. Mr. Garritty, the saloon keeper, offers work to the children; this gets them through elementary school and the time of her confinement. Francie’s little sister is born with her help. She and her brother graduate. Although they can barely rub two nickels together, her mother leaves a large tip for the waiter who serves them ice cream.

We are left wondering how Francie will be able to attend high school…

A friend of mine says it is important to tell these stories about family: the good, bad, and the ugly, because no family is perfect and showing how a family can stick together through thick and thin is very important as a model for others who may also be struggling.

Follow me as I explore the rest of this novel, whether or not you have read it or plan to. “A Tree in Brooklyn” has become a commonly used metaphor in American life. In America, you are what you make your life to be.

A Mother’s Wisdom Finally Recognized: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”: Book Two

Please click on key word A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for previous installments in this series.

In Book Two (chapters 7–14) of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, Francie Nolan breaks off from her own adolescent memories to tell her life story from the point of view of her mother, Katie. She has already told us that she prefers her father, but we can see that as she pieces together her history she understands a bit of what her mother has gone through for her children.

Katie won Johnny over from her best friend and they married four months later. Soon they learned that she was pregnant and her father never quite got over the fact that he was responsible for this new life. From that night, he would drown his sense of incompetence in drink.

Even the name Johnny, to me, seems to confer the title of a lovable boy who refuses to grow up. Most men will cast of their childish nicknames once they become responsible, mature citizens. He would never change.

There is much description of all the siblings of both Johnny and Katie. The tacking-down of family characteristics is one that only comes of several generations sitting down together and sharing story after story. Francie can identify which of her characteristics came from which side, which from the books she reads, and which were just God-given. Although she may question God multiple times throughout the book, He is an every-present given that she cannot deny.

To her own mother, a saintly, uneducated, first-generation immigrant named Mary who is married to “the devil”, Katie bemoans the circumstance that she has brought a girl into the world, who she fears is destined to live a poor and hard life like her.

People of my parent’s generation didn’t want their children to have to work as hard as they did. They worked to save college money. I remember my parents telling me how they had to work through high school in the evenings. They wanted me to get the most of my education. That was my job, they said. They wanted me to be a kid. They gave me odd chores, such as leaf-raking and babysitting, to have some of my own money, and they paid for all my essentials. Others of my peers had more given to them: designer clothes, ski trips, and fancy cars. Many of them never did learn to fend for themselves. The next generation seems to be even more spoiled. Now video games and cell phones are provided to most children. Where is the fine line dividing what should be provided for children, and what should not?

Mary, who has never herself learned to read or write, offers some sage advice.

1. Read to them a page a day each from Shakespeare and The Bible, until they can read for themselves. She doesn’t even know that Shakespeare is a writer, not the name of a specific book, but she has heard it is a great book. She specifies the Protestant Bible because she thinks it sounds lovelier. Although they do read this translation, the Nolans are very Catholic in their beliefs and their ways.
2. Save a nickel a day toward the purchase of land. In ten years she would have $50, enough to purchase a lot of land. Her words will turn out to be true, in a weird and kind of ironic way.

Another child quickly follows, seemingly a mystery to both of them. These youngsters still don’t understand how biology works. A mid-wife offers her a bottle of medicine that will terminate the pregnancy, but her mother refuses it, saying she will find a way to get along.

Katie follows Mary’s advice, no matter how hard, and her children help her in carrying it out, having its importance deeply engrained in their minds through her own dogged self-discipline. How the bank is built and attached, and how the Bible and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare are obtained are whole stories in themselves. Betty Smith is so descriptive and colorful that you can see the tin can nailed in its dark closet, and the old volumes that would be the entire family library for many years.

Katie mother admits to herself that she loves her son more than her daughter. She knows this from the moment she holds her strong son, while her one-year-old daughter is still failing to thrive.

It must have been heart-breaking for Francie to know this as she grew up, sub-consciously at first, and later quite clearly. I wonder how many deep, tearful conversations they had together when Francie got older and was able to discuss this all at depth with her mother.

One night, which seemingly portends an early death, Johnny tells Francie that their new apartment will be “my last home”. She misses the “my” part until reminiscing in her narration. They are standing on the roof, watching a boy steal a pigeon from his family. “Maybe the pigeon wanted to get away from his relatives,” says Johnny. Alcohol is stealing him from his family and, most of the time, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Francie has so many very colorful characters in her family. I think that she has learned to be very non-judgmental in her own world view as a result of her poignant observations of her relatives, including circumstances that have made them stray from the straight-and-narrow, analysis of their good intentions, hope that God will have mercy on them in the afterlife, and the sting of those outside the family who would cast aspersions on her and her loved ones.

Follow me as I explore the rest of this novel, whether or not you have read it or plan to. “A Tree in Brooklyn” has become a commonly used metaphor in American life. In America, you are what you make your life to be.

Remembering our Childhoods Even-Handedly: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, Chapters 3-6

Click here for my reflections on Chapters 1-2, which set up the story of this autobiographical novel by Betty Smith.

Francie Nolan deals with memories of both her parents fairly even-handedly. It is amazing to me how she can tell her story in the voice of a mature, wise woman, while reflecting on how she actually did see things while a young girl.

There is no real tenderness between her and her mother, Katie; yet she reveals the particulars of the painstaking ways her mother used to get by for the sake of her children. Her father, Johnny, is an alcoholic, bringing home very little income on his on-and-off-again job as a singing waiter; yet he has a beautiful soul that endears his children to him. She confesses that she did not know she was “supposed to be ashamed” of him.

It is during adolescence that she chooses to start this story; this is the time when the rosy glasses through which we see childhood start to come off. Then comes a stormy several years during which a growing girl’s mother seemingly does very little right, and her father can do no wrong. When we get older, and bear children ourselves, we see more clearly the sacrifices our own mothers have given for us, and see also that our fathers have some foibles that we hadn’t admitted before.

Katie is a genious in the kitchen. She can make all kinds of named dishes out of stale bread. She sends the children off for pennies worth of small ingredients to make a real meal. She has taught them all the “tricks” of dealing with the local shop-owners, such as how to make sure you receive unadulterated, freshly ground meat.

I have inherited the ways of this era, from tales of my second-generation maternal grandparents (whose parents came from Hungary and Italy), and refuse to waste a scrap of food. Rather than use recipes, I go by what I have fresh in the refrigerator. Whatever is oldest is used first. No meatloaf is the same; there is always some “secret ingredient”, which is perhaps some salad dressing that had to be used up soon. And when I make an egg-white cake, I save the yokes. These are whipped up for little ones that need the protein and fat for their developing brains. Ground eggshells can be used in the garden.

And yet, despite all her ingenuity, they always feel hungry. The reader can only feel pain for their empty little tummies. We wonder how the father could possibly drink away his sorrows while knowing he has two starving children at home, collecting junk to sell so they could buy stale bread. And how could he let his wife slave her youth away, scrubbing people’s tenements, including their own so they could have free rent? All he has to do is provide their food, and he is incapable of even that. His daughter truly is gracious in her memory, and yet she is allowing us to see the truth.

Certain quotes of her parents are remembered with sadness. It seems that she got them wrong when she was little, through her desire that things would be a bit rosier. But the actual conversations were clarified as she got older and saw things more realistically.

One night, Johnny goes off in a tangent, confiding to his daughter how he wished he never had any children; that he was never ready for this responsibility and it ruined his life. Suddenly he seems to see the effect of his words on his daughter and he tells her that he loves her.

Their lives are so imperfect, and yet the parents share a tenderness that is hard to believe amidst their turmoil. As Francie lies awake she hears them talking through the night, sharing and reminiscing. These moments, along with the hours spent with her books out on the fire escape in the shade of her beloved tree, seem to give her some peace of spirit.

Why has the author chosen to reveal these painful memories of her past, mixed with the solace of small pleasures? What has this to do with the tree that stubbornly grows through the cement? She has said that this particular tree thrives only in the poor neighborhoods. Is she saying she would not have become a great writer if it was not for her hardships? Certainly her writing would not have the same flavor, the descriptions of a life that could only be shown this way from within.

Her belief in God and faith in his plan is revealed here as well. He knew what He was doing when he planted her in the poor tenements of Brooklyn, with two young parents who didn’t know what they were getting into.

Follow me as I explore the rest of this novel, whether or not you have read it or plan to. “A Tree in Brooklyn” has become a commonly used metaphor in American life. In America, you are what you make your life to be.

How Times Change, and How They Don’t: Reflections on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, by Betty Smith: Chapters 1-2

Along with Loren Christie and one or two of our friends, I have just started reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, the autobiographical novel by Betty Smith that has earned its place in the Canon. This is a book I have long wished to read, if only for its title. My father, who grew up on Long Island, used to take the train daily to attend Brooklyn Preparatory High School, and has long prided himself on his “Brooklyn accent”, which he claims is the “King’s English”.

I don’t think anyone can read this without comparing the life of poverty led by the childhood character Francie with the way things are now. She and her brother Neeley would spend the week collecting recyclables and bring them to the junk shop every Saturday. Half was put into a tin can for family savings and the other half was split between the siblings, to be spent at the five-and-dime on silly trinkets.

Recycling has become the fashionable thing to do for those of all walks of life. I like to play a game to see how high I can fill the recycling containers – and sometimes even a second pail full – and then am happy to see the Town of Brookhaven take it away, sometimes even operating at a loss for the Town. After a party, I like to bring the soda cans to the grocery store and get some change in my pocket, even though I know I paid that deposit up front.

Back then, collecting and cashing in a recyclables was a necessity just to make ends meet. Even if the kids did not work for an income, this was a way they could contribute to the household budget. Nowadays, I still see several characters in our town roaming up and down the main road with grocery carts, picking up cans. If they are lucky, they will come up with enough to buy a 99-cent burger and a cheap bottle of wine to keep them warm at night.

If Francie let the junk shop owner pinch her cheek without flinching, she would get an extra “pinching penny”. It is so interesting to me how she and Neeley understood there was something wrong with this, and yet allowed it so she could get that extra penny. Sprinkled throughout that first chapter were mentions of other adult characters that the children knew to stay away from. And yet they were allowed free roam of the streets from dawn until dusk.

Nowadays we keep a good eye on our young ones, and many now have cell phones so their parents can know where they are at all times. Dangerous people have always been out there – what is the salient difference, I wonder? It seems to me that children back then were a lot more grown up, and trusted to be able to deal with the danger that is part of life.

The children go out to buy stale, day-old bread, and cheap cuts of meat for the family dinner. Three times a day they are allowed bitter, black coffee with condensed milk on the side; they are permitted to have plain coffee without milk as often as they like. Francie is permitted her coffee with milk although her mother knows she will pour it out after dinner. She just likes to hold the warm cup and smell the coffee. It makes them feel rich to be able to waste something.

This seems like such a significant trifle to mention. That, along with the fact that Francie will hide her day-old bread in a paper bag, shows that Francie’s family, although poor, has pride. Her mother cuts a fine figure, not looking like she cleans houses for a living. Her father is a drunk, but is well-loved by everyone in the neighborhood.

I loved the second chapter, in which Francie goes to the library. It makes me happy that Ben Franklin started the first free public library and that most towns have one. Her dream is to own ONE book of her own. That makes me thankful that I have so many, and that my kids have an abundance of them. It makes me feel very rich.

Francie reads a book a day, going through alphabetical order, thinking that eventually she can read every book that was every written. This draws her character close to my heart. I remember as a child reading how Anne of Green Gables was reading the dictionary one page at a time and I started to do the same thing. On the back of one of my books was a list of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written and I vowed I would read them all; I am still working on it.

Read “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” along with us! I will be blogging on this book as I go along.