A huge bestseller which went through innumerable printings. Basis for the first film directed by Elia Kazan, which featured Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Oscar winners Peggy Ann Garner and James Dunn (who touchingly brought his considerable experience as a real alcoholic to the screen).--Biblio
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie …
A huge bestseller which went through innumerable printings. Basis for the first film directed by Elia Kazan, which featured Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Oscar winners Peggy Ann Garner and James Dunn (who touchingly brought his considerable experience as a real alcoholic to the screen).--Biblio
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.
Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published... --Emilie Coulter at Amazon.com. "Maggie Now": This book begins its story before Maggie Now's birth. It introduces her contrary father, Patrick, as a young man in Ireland and her gentle mother, Mary, as a school teacher in New York at the turn of the century. They meet in New York after Patrick flees Ireland and comes to America to work for Mary's father. Maggie Now grows up attending Catholic school, rearing her younger brother and yearning for love and a family of her own.-- Aurora
Review of 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Gelesen, weil es in "The Glass Castle" ein Lieblingsbuch der Erzählerin ist. Es war auch zu ungefähr einem (über das ganze Buch verteilten) Drittel schön und interessant, man erfährt viele Details über Brooklyn in den 1900er und 1910er Jahren. Aber die Dialoge sind unnatürlich und die Redenden erzählen einander Dinge, die sie längst wissen müssten. Außerdem wirkt das Buch (immerhin ein Bestseller der 1940er Jahre) schlampig lektoriert, es werden mehrmals Dinge ein zweites und drittes Mal erklärt und erzählt, die früher schon vorgekommen sind. Ich dachte erst, es sei vielleicht als Fortsetzungsroman erschienen, ist es aber nicht.
