A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN:BY BETTY SMITH

SPOILER ALERT:      

     I stopped when absolutely nothing was happening in the book, now absolutely everything is happening. Francie gets a new dose of real life as time goes by. She experiences death and birth into the family. She experiences love and terror, too. Francie is now discovering that life isn't always fair. But fairness happens to the people who are good. 

     When we last stopped, we saw that drunken man walking with his children and that burned out woman. Well, lets just say that the drunken man isn't walking with his children anymore, in fact, he isn't doing anything with his children, he's dead. His death really did effect the family. Francie perhaps was the one who was effected the most. At first, she couldn't wrap around the concept that her father, her gay happily dancing and singing father was dead. He died because he technically killed himself by drinking himself silly with alcohol. When she did realize that he was gone, she was very inferiated. How could he leave her with a her brother who is also learning to adjust to the world and mother who is just about to have a new born baby.

     Katie Noland, did not expect to have her new born baby without her husband being at her side. She loved Johnny more than anything in the world, but she had to face the truth, he was useless. He only donated what wanted to to the families money "bank," and saved his tips to buy booze. SHE has to do all the work. And her ruined hands are proof. She is the one who has to wash four houses a day and go home to clean her own. Then she has to cook dinner for the whole family.

     I feel as though the Noland family will never quite be complete now. I mean there will be some one who comes along, but he will never be able to be the exact missing to the heart. Even though Jonny Noland was a worthless bum, he brought life to everything he knew