The Street (original 1946; edition 1998)

From 500 Great Books by Women: "Ann Petry puts forth a painfully honest treatise on black/white relations in The Street, and while it was written nearly fifty years ago, her unblinking insights and powerful commentary on the dynamics of race in the United States remain accurate today.

This novel was written in 1940s era. Ms. Lutie Johnson faces failed marriage due to her husband unable to find work and cheats...so she finds her own place on the street in Harlem (116th Street) with her young 8-year-old son, Bud. The streets, deals with racism, sexism, negativity, and mental-insane moments when life doesn't go the way you planned--things keep backing and standing in your way. Lutie Johnson tried to hold a job, become a nightclub singer, and raise her son; but no daycare and son was practically raising himself which lead to his downfall--jail time for mail theft for Super Jones (superintendent of the place of residency where Ms. Johnson and Bud stayed). The ending is not expected but reading from beginning to end, anticipated. ( )

In 1944 Lutie Johnson believes that all it takes is hard work to succeed, so when she finds an apartment in Harlem that she can move into with her son, Bub, she sees it as a step up. Get him away from her dad’s gin-drinking girlfriend and all the roomers packed in the house. But it seems as though her hard work does nothing against the street and the walls that the white people build around the colored people brick by brick.

This book is a heart-breaking representation of how racism tore apart black families in the early 20th century throughout most of it, but the ending is totally out of left-field and does not seem to belong in with the realism of the rest of the book. Most of the book is great for its representation of real life in Harlem and how much stress and challenge black families fact. The end though rips it out of reality and places it firmly into a fantasy land. It reads as a revenge fantasy for the author. I wish the author had chosen the, perhaps more obvious, but far more tragic option.

Overall, recommended, but be prepared for a disappointing ending.

Check out my full review: http://wp.me/p7vL ( )

A phenomenal story. "The street" itself is actually one of the novel's main characters, taking on a life of its own throughout the story. As noted on page 323 in Lutie Johnson's thoughts, referring to her Harlem ghetto neighborhood,

"Streets like the one she lived on were no accident. They were the North's lynch mobs...the methods the big cities used to keep Negroes in their place." (323)

Not only that, but "and while you were out working to pay the rent on this stinking, rotten place, why, the street outside played nursemaid to your kid. It became both mother and father and trained your kid for you, and it was an evil father and a vicious mother..." (407).

I won't go through the plot here, because it is so eloquently summarized by others here and elsewhere on the internet, but throughout the book, the street took on a life of its own, providing the impetus for Lutie's actions. All she wanted was her little slice of the American dream for herself and her son, but the more she attempted to leave the street behind her, the more it hemmed her in. And outside the street existed factors that put and kept people in the street: unemployment, racism and distrust, economic oppression. This book is a very gritty and unapologetic look at the Harlem ghetto of the 1940s, and I think one of the most revealing scenes (meaning one that really struck me) in this novel was that in which the Harlem schoolteacher's thoughts were laid bare. You kind of have to wonder how far we've actually come from the world portrayed in this book -- the issues here are largely still relevant.

The Street is not a happy, feel-good type of novel, so if that's what you want, then skip it. This book really got under my skin and I know it's one I'll think about for some time. It's also one I'd recommend to anyone, and would list under the "don't miss this book" category. The writing is most excellent; the reader can actually envision the streets filled with rubbish, the squalidness of the apartments, and can feel the total anguish that Lutie felt throughout the story. The characterizations are excellent as well.

Highly recommended. ( )

1946. A haunting story of life in Harlem. Kind of heavy handed with the idea that the street itself is evil. But an understandable portrait of how a decent human being can be driven to murder. Pretty Lutie Johnson is nearly raped by the building superintendent, constantly invited to become a whore by the building madame, and eventually hounded and bribed by the local slum lord to become his woman. (She refuses.) Meanwhile her 8-year-old son, Bub, is left too much to his own devices and Lutie worries he'll come to no good. She ends up going off and killing a man who is about to rape her and fleeing to Chicago, abandoning her son. Tragic. ( )