Public Libraries of Suffolk County, New York

The street ;, The narrows, Ann Petry ; edited by Farah Jasmine Griffin

eng

no index present

novels

The street ;

Ann Petry ; edited by Farah Jasmine Griffin

Library of America, 314

The narrows

In one volume, two landmark novels about the terrible power of race in America from one of the foremost African American writers of the past century. Ann Petry is increasingly recognized as one of the essential American novelists of the twentieth century. Now, she joins the Library of America series with this deluxe hardcover volume gathering her two greatest works, one of which is the first novel by an African-American woman to sell over a million copies. Also included are three of Petry's previously uncollected essays related to the novels and a newly researched chronology of the author's life, prepared with the assistance of her daughter Elisabeth PetryThe Street (1946) — Lutie Johnson, a young, newly single mother, struggles to make a better life for her son, Bub. In this intimate account of the aspirations and challenges of black, female, working-class life, much of it set on a single block in Harlem, the novel exposes structural inequalities in American society while telling a complex human story, as overpriced housing, lack of opportunity, sexual harassment, and racism conspire to limit Lutie's potential and to break her buoyant spiritThe Narrows (1953) — Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar due to the lack of better opportunities for an African American man in a staid mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link's life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. Drinking in a bar together after the incident, "Camilo" discovers that her rescuer is African American and he learns that she is white. Unbeknownst to him, "Camilo" (actually Camilla Treadway Sheffield) is a wealthy married woman who has crossed the town's racial divide to relieve the tedium of her life. Thus brought together by chance, Link and Camilla draw each other into furtive encounters that violate the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their own town and times

The street -- The narrows -- Other writings. The great secret ; Harlem ; The novel as social criticism

adult

Narrows