Transfer Point

by Kathryn Forbes

Young Allie Barton growing up in San Francisco, 1919-1921.

Genres: Fiction

195 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Forbes, born Kathryn Anderson, was the granddaughter of Norwegian immigrants. She was a writer best known for Mama's Bank Account, a fictionalized memoir about a Norwegian family in 1920s San Francisco. The book focused on the warmhearted family and its struggles and dreams. The book inspired first a play, then a movie, and finally a TV series, all called I Remember Mama.

Forbes also published novel called Transfer Point, about a daughter of divorced parents. This was considered to have been based on Forbes' own childhood.

Reviews

[Laurie]

I never knew that Kathryn Forbes had written another book (besides the beloved Mama's Bank Account) until Susann shared this novel with me. It's also narrated by a young girl growing up poor, but unlike Katrin, Allie is exposed to the seamy side of life. Her parents are separated, and the novel describes her torn loyalties between mother and father in a way that foreshadows the later problem novels about children of divorce.

Transfer Point so strongly echoes A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that I looked up publication dates, out of curiosity: Tree novel 1943, Tree movie 1945, Transfer Point 1947. So the author was certainly aware of Tree, and probably knew comparisons would be made. Transfer Point depicts San Francisco of the 1920s as vividly as Francie's Brooklyn. It's an unusual and interesting novel.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The protagonist is a spunky 10 year old girl whose parents are "separated". If published today it would have flown off the teen, 'tween, or children's library and bookstore shelves, but in 1947 it languished in the stacks of novels published for adults. Allie, like her better known and much loved counter-part Harry Potter, is much mis-treated and mis-understood by the many adults in her life. Even so, her "voice" is that of a ten-year-old, taking everything as it comes and solving situations as a ten-year-old would. The 195 page book was a page-turner with no wasted words or events. This coming-of-age book would feel right-at-home with today's young people.

[Aran Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine the Bicycle Thief crossed with Ramona the Pest and you have a good idea of the tone of Transfer Point. Elspeth Huxley’s unflinching account of Colonial Kenya in Flame Trees of Thika also came to mind as I read Tranfer Point’s view of 1919 San Francisco through the eyes of a 10 year old girl.

This feels like a deeply authentic account of life from that time, and I suspect much of this book contains autobiographical details. To make it even more interesting, the protagonist is living in very challenging circumstances, which gives us a fascinating peek at a less than perfect urban life not normally depicted in literature.

Forbes wrote this in 1947, and I am curious if she was inspired by the sometimes bleak realism of the era’s Film Noir cinema. This is not a jolly tale of a Spunky Kid. Unlike Ramona Quimby, Allie Barton, the young narrator of Transfer Point, does not typically punctuate her episodes with perfectly timed comedic relief. Instead, the episodes at times feel like they could belong in a film by Ingemar Bergman or Jean-Luc Godard.

My main problem with the book is that many of the episodes in the latter half of the book are often abbreviated down to a point where it starts to feel like an outline. It is almost like Forbes rushes through the second half.

It is a shame, because there is a lot of potential here and I hate to think of what amazing historical details Forbes had in her mind, but didn’t write down due to concerns for space or even a sense of decency.

While the material is dark, it is not explicit, and I think many middle school kids would be fine with the content in this. I think tween readers and older would find it quite fascinating to see what type of life a 10 year old might have lived 100 years ago, and I agree with other reviews that this book deserves to be more widely know. than it currently is.

[Roger Burk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A moderately charming coming-of-age story about a working-class daughter of separated parents in 1920 San Francisco, trying to firgure out the strange ways of grown-ups.

[Mary Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this -- more than I thought I would. I've not yet read Kathryn Forbes' other (more famous) book, MAMA'S BANK ACCOUNT, but I'm planning to start it soon. I was able to get this out from the library in the meantime.

TRANSFER POINT is told from the POV of a young girl, but it's not a children's book. Instead we're observing the life of flawed adults from the perspective of the child, Allie. What makes this interesting is that it's set in the years after WWI, in a boarding house run by Allie's mother. She is separated from her husband.

I was struck by Forbes' ability to clearly delineate her characters in a series of economical scenes -- one gets a very strong sense of them because they feel real, never sentimental or cliched. Some vignettes are open-ended, some have a satisfying closure (of sorts). There are some genuinely sad moments involving death (as with Allie's father), and at least one that borders on black comedy.

The book is so good it makes me wish it could be reissued.

[Dorothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written; I enjoyed reading it.

[Susann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was mistakenly shelved in the children's section of Powell's. Although the protagonist is a child, this is an adult book. It's set in San Francisco, 1919-1921, and centers around the precocious Allie Barton, who sleeps in her shoes because it takes too long to lace them up in the morning. The story is darker and more complicated than Forbes' MAMA'S BANK ACCOUNT. It reminded me a bit of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. San Franciscans would probably enjoy it for the setting, but it's not a required read.
Interesting review here.