Front cover of a first edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1943 by Betty Smith.
Summary[]
The novel is split into five books.
Book One[]
It is 1912. 11-year-old Francie Nolan lives in a tenement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her brother Cornelius (Neeley), 10, and parents Johnny and Katie. The family gets by on Katie's wages from cleaning and the alcoholic Johnny's unreliable earnings as a singing waiter. Francie relies on her love of reading to provide an escape from this grim daily existence.
Book Two[]
The story goes back to 1900 and tells how Johnny and Katie met. Johnny first begins drinking when Katie becomes pregnant with Francie. During the first seven years of Francie’s life the Nolans have to move twice within Williamsburg, due to public disgraces caused by Johnny, who loses them a caretaking job, and by the children's Aunt Sissy. The Nolans arrive at the apartment we see in in Book One.
Book Three[]
The Nolans settle into their new home, and seven-year-old Francie and six-year-old Neeley begin to attend the run-down local school. Francie, who enjoys learning transfers herself to a better school in a different school neighborhood, using subterfuges to stop anyone guessing. Katie is forced to save Francies’s life by shooting a murderer who tries to attack Francie when 13, but the police are sympathetic and she is not prosecuted. After Katie becomes pregnant once again, Johnny falls into a depression that leads to his death on Christmas Day 1915. Katie cashes in the family’s life insurance policies, the children take after-school jobs, and this keep the family afloat in 1916. Annie Laurie, the third child, is born in May, and Francie graduates from school in June. Francie to finally come to terms with the reality of her father’s personality and his death.
Book Four[]
Francie and Neeley take jobs because there is no money to send them to high school. Francie gets a job in a press clipping office after lying about her age. Realising Neeley will go to high school only if forced, Francie uses her own money to send him. When the USA enters WWI in 1917, the clipping office closes, and Francie finds work as a teletype operator. She starts taking summer college-level courses, and passes with the help of Ben Blake, a friendly a high school student, but she fails the college entrance exams. A brief encounter with Lee Rhynor, a soldier preparing to ship out to France, leads to heartbreak when she learns he is in fact about to get married. In 1918, Katie accepts a marriage proposal from Michael McShane, a retired police officer who has become wealthy as part of New York’s Tammany Hall political apparatus.
Book Five[]
In 1918 Francie, 16, quits her teletype job. She passes the entrance exams the University of Michigan. The Nolans prepare to move from their Brooklyn apartment to McShane's home. Francie is struck by how much of Johnny's character lives on in Neeley, who has become a talented pianist. Before she leaves the apartment, Francie notices the tree of heaven (an ailanthus, a very hardy species) that has continued to grow in the building's yard despite all efforts to destroy it. It is a metaphor for her family's ability to overcome adversity and thrive. She sees too a neighborhood girl, Florry, who reminds her of her young self, sitting on the fire escape with a book.
Adaptations[]
The 1945 film, directed by Elia Kazan, starring James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner.
The 1951 Broadway musical, written by Betty Smith and George Abbott, music by Arthur Schwartz and choreography by Herbert Ross.
A 1974 television movie starring Cliff Robertson and Pamelyn Ferdin.
External links[]
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at TV Tropes.
- Free text of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn available at the Internet Archive.