NO TREES IN BROOKLYN
TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER, by Betty Smith; Heinemann. Australian price, 9/6. IS novel is about the people in a rather poor quarter of Brooklyn, and especially about a young woman,.Margy Shannon, and the way in which she
grows up, goes to work, marries. The story might have been, but is not, told with great bitterness. The poor of Brooklyn have little enough to hope for — the line between a reasonable existence and a grim struggle is too easily crossed in the wrong direction-but the young at any rate go on hoping. Betty Smith is neither a. first-class writer nor a philosopher, though she has caught some incidents and experiences well and-what is more important -has said some things that should be said. Her most important theme is that we are not much more than our parents have made us and that in a generally unfavourable environment we are unlikely to make more of our lives than they made of theirs and so break the vicious circle. She is specially concerned with the product of the too possessive parent. These are not new or startling ideas, nor does the author treat them with great depth; but to have drawn attention to them in a simple tale told for
the millions was worthwhile
F.A.
J.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19500113.2.21.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 14
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217NO TREES IN BROOKLYN New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 14
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