Ann Petry: The Street, The Narrows (LOA #314)

by Ann Petry, Farah Jasmine Griffin (Editor)

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. Published in 1946 to widespread critical and popular acclaim--it was the first novel by an African-American woman to sell over a million copies--The Street follows Lutie Johnson, a young, newly single mother, as she struggles to make a better life for her son, Bub. An 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 spirit. Less widely read than her blockbuster debut and still underappreciated, The Narrows (1953) is Petry's most ambitious and accomplished novel--a multi-layered, stylistically innovative exploration of themes of race, class, sexuality, gender, and power in postwar America. Centered around an adulterous interracial affair in a small Connecticut town between the young black scholar-athlete Link Williams and white, privileged munitions heiress Camilo Sheffield, it is also a fond, incisive community portrait, full of unforgettable minor characters, unexpected humor, and a rich sense of history. Also included in the volume 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 Petry.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels

782 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 26, 2019

About the author

Ann Petry (October 12, 1908 – April 28, 1997) was an American author who became the first black woman writer with book sales topping a million copies for her novel The Street.

The wish to become a professional writer was raised in Ann for the first time in high school when her English teacher read her essay to the class commenting on it with the words: “I honestly believe that you could be a writer if you wanted to.” The decision to become a pharmacist was her family’s. She turned up in college and graduated with a Ph.G. degree from Connecticut College of Pharmacy in New Haven in 1931 and worked in the family business for several years. She also began to write short stories while she was working at the pharmacy.

On February 22, 1938, she married George D. Petry of New Iberia, Louisiana, which brought Petry to New York. She not only wrote articles for newspapers such as The Amsterdam News, or The People's Voice, and published short stories in The Crisis, but also worked at an after-school program at P.S. 10 in Harlem. It was during this period of her life that she had realized and personally experienced what the majority of the black population of the United States had to go through in their everyday life.

Traversing the streets of Harlem, living for the first time among large numbers of poor black people, seeing neglected children up close – Petry's early years in New York inevitably made impressions on her. Impacted by her Harlem experiences, Ann Petry used her creative writing skills to bring this experience to paper. Her daughter Liz explained to the Washington Post that “her way of dealing with the problem was to write this book, which maybe was something that people who had grown up in Harlem couldn’t do.”

Petry's most popular novel The Street was published in 1946 and won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship with book sales topping a million copies.

Back in Old Saybrook in 1947, the writer worked on Country Place (1947), The Narrows (1953), other stories, and books for children, but they have never achieved the same success as her first book. Until her death Petry lived in an 18th-century house in her hometown, Old Saybrook. She drew on her personal experiences of the hurricane in Old Saybrook in her 1947 novel, Country Place. Although the novel is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Petry identified the 1938 New England huricane as the source for the storm that is at the center of her narrative. Ann Lane Petry died at the age of 88 on April 28, 1997. She was outlived by her husband, George Petry, who died in 2000, and her only daughter, Liz Petry.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Paul Jellinek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two gripping novels about African American life in mid-20th century America, the first set in Harlem, the second in Connecticut where the author, Ann Petry, grew up. I had a hard time at first continuing on with "The Street" because of the brooding intensity of some of the scenes. You can feel the walls closing in on you ask you follow the main character and the hulking "super" up the stairs and into the tiny apartment that is all that she can afford for her and her son. And it gets worse from there. But the sheer power of Petry's writing and imagery pulled me along on this harrowing journey that reminded me of some of John Hawkes's best writing. These are not novels for the faint of heart, but of course that's true of any great literature.

[Amber Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and also beautiful, The Street reads like a better version of Hemingway and the author's construction of Lutie's fate as horrifying in its inevitability is unlike anything I've encountered since Thomas Hardy. These comparisons, however, reduce what Petry's doing because her voice remains all her own, as does her slippery use of figurative language and point of view. The street comes alive and with it the horrors facing women of color in the '40s and today.
(I read this novel just after Absalom, Absalom and I think, honestly, it is a better work.)

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I start? Ann Petry has a way with drawing the viewers and captivating their attention for hours. There were so many twists and turns in this book, coming to a complete halt at the very last setting. Wow! I really wasn't expecting the ending to be such a drastic shift compared to the beginning of the book. I internally felt some emotion as I turned the last page and realized that none of the characters were ever going to be the same after what had transpired. Such a great book, I would recommend this one in a heartbeat.

[Ollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first read of both of these stories. My local bookseller ordered me this amazing edition.
Ann Petry has incredible insight to her characters and the nature people.
The narrows is truly fascinating but the Street has wisdom and depth beyond just its words.
Both are classics in the literary cannon and should be read by one and all.
I loved both of these works. Thanks to @reggiereads for introducing me to this amazing author.

[Deborah Schuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful writer. Her characters were alive and real, and I cared about what happened to them. The non-fiction pieces were also very good.

[Sabena · Rating 5 out of 5]

How have I not heard of Ms. Petry and her stories?? (Rhetorical question - sort of)

And so glad the LOA made these 2 stories available in one volume.

[Sondra · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading author Anne Petry’s highly acclaimed novel, "The Street", which I loved, I was eager to read more of the author’s work and immediately plunged into another Petry novel, "The Narrows".

The consensus among critics is that "The Narrows" is Petry’s “masterpiece”, but unfortunately, I disagree with this assessment. While the quality of the prose in "The Narrows" equals that of "The Street", I found little else to compare with the excellence of the earlier novel.

In one disturbing scene, the narrator, an angry person of color, expounds on the superiority of crows, ravens, and blackbirds, simply because they have “black” feathers. The narrator then picks up a rock and deliberately maims and kills a foraging pigeon, simply because the bird happens to have “white” feathers. I am not quite sure what this act of cruelty is meant to convey, but the only thing it proves to me is that those who identify themselves as “oppressed” are often as evil as their oppressors when given the opportunity. Any person of any color who expresses his or anger by harming an innocent party---whether it be an animal, a child, or an innocent bystander---is a fool.

At that point I lost interest in the story, as well as all respect for the author, and closed the book without finishing.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

He never lay still when he was in bed. He turned and twisted in his sleep as though sleep were an enemy and he determined to destroy it, to fight the sheets and the blankets and the pillows which were the enemy's first line of defense. In the morning, in the winter, he was always lying on his side, the covers pulled over his big shoulders, so that when she first woke up she always thought she had been sleeping in a tent, the covers were tent-like, lifted up by the Major's shoulders, and drafts played around her neck and back, down the tunnel that the covers formed. When the Major got out of a bed it looked like a battleground, all furrowed and riddled, the sheets rumpled, the blankets on the floor. She used to wonder if this bed-mauling was a family trait, just as some families run to cleft palates and buck teeth and rheumatism, so perhaps the Crunches for generations back had been bed-maulers, unable to lie still in a bed, congenitally forced to twist and turn, and pull the sheets and push the blankets and punch the pillows, warring against sleep. She would cast one last disgusted look at him, and then go quietly down the stairs to make the morning coffee.

[J Katz · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting but very depressing, not that that was reason for not liking much. I did learn about the author who was very successful author for her time. The story was a woman seperated from her husband who moved into a crappy apartment with her young son. She was much at will of men who desired her to include the building superintendent and a musician who tried to get her work as a singer. A sad ending too.

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad I discovered Petry. I loved both stories and how race was shown from both the perspective of a single mother and young man in an interracial relationship. I do feel like there were times when some areas where the writing was a little scattered.

[kathryn donovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written story about what happens to people when they reach their breaking points.

Petry wrote The Street while living on 129th and 5th Ave (recently renamed Ann Petry Place in September of this year )

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I had read it earlier.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction P498a 2019