Contemporary Fiction/Classics

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a historical novel that takes place in Brooklyn at the beginning of the 1900’s to about 1920 and chronicles the life of young, bookish Francie Nolan and the rest of the struggling, impoverished Nolan family. Francie’s father (whom she adores) is an alcoholic and works intermittently as a singing waiter, and her mother works as a scrubwoman cleaning local apartments.

Francie’s mother encourages her and her brother Neely to read and to study as much as possible because as she tells them, education is the only way they can lift themselves into a better life. That being said, Francie’s mother makes Francie read pages from Shakespeare and the Bible every night, and because of that, Francie develops a voracious reading habit. Her intelligence and her razor-sharp observation skills cause her to develop a maturity far beyond her years, and I found it fascinating to watch her mature as the story moved forward.

But It’s not always very easy going for Francie. Being sort of a misfit, she is bullied, mocked and often criticized by both her family and society. Yet she’s a resilient girl and is able to keep moving forward regardless of her hardships.

Actually, Francie’s world is pretty tough overall as her family has to struggle with finances, brutal work and unexpected death. The Nolan family is poor — very poor — but they manage to eke out a living for themselves with plenty of hard work and sacrifice. In spite of being so impoverished, I found it interesting how Francie’s mother was entirely against any form of charity even if it meant some hungry nights for all of them. She was determined to get by on her own hard work and not on handouts.

Though at first glance, the novel seems to be a series of snapshots anecdotes portraying the family’s hardships and Francie’s growing pains, we also see an evolution of the Nolan family as the years pass and the children mature and become more and more educated. And despite the hardships and challenges of daily life, there is also a great deal of happiness. Happiness resulting from the love of family. Happiness coming from successes and triumphs here and there that provide not only hope but a desired to strive to better our circumstances.

This is a captivating story of a girl’s coming of age under more than challenging circumstances. I felt that Francie’s story is still surprisingly captivating and relevant today in spite of taking place over a century ago. The reasons for this, I think, is that Francie and her family experience the same things we all do: love, birth, death, difficult circumstances, marriage, struggle and striving to better ourselves. It’s an inspiring story about the resilience of the human spirit and how determination, self-awareness, and sacrifice can help us improve our circumstances.

The book is bleak in some parts, heartfelt and hopeful in others. It’s tragic and funny, heart-wrenching and heart-warming. It does deal with some serious topics such as poverty, alcoholism, exploitation, sexual abuse, child abuse, grief, and death but there is also success, aspiration and ultimately hope.

All in all, it’s a heartfelt, well-written story about a young girl’s coming-of-age at the turn of the 20th century and I thoroughly enjoyed being transported to another time to catch a glimpse of what life was like for the Nolan family. The lyricism in this book flowed beautifully, and I’m so glad that I read this classic.

Now I will say that this book wasn’t heavy on plot or action and it took me a while to get into this story. I was about 40 pages in and considered DNFing it. But I’m happy I stuck it out as I found it to be a compelling, moving story full of rich, interesting characters.

This review originally posted on my book review blog at rogersreads.com.

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This book was a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2018 and is named after our main protagonist, Arthur Less, a fumbly, insecure gay man about to turn 50 and whose latest manuscript has just been rejected by his long-time publisher.

To make matters worse, a wedding invitation arrives in the mail announcing that Arthur’s boyfriend of the past nine years, Freddy, is marrying someone else. Hell, Arthur didn’t even realize that their relationship was over.

So he certainly wasn’t about to attend the wedding as that would be majorly awkward. But to refuse would look petty. Deeply discouraged and more than a bit heartbroken, Arthur does what anyone else would do in such as situation:

Run Away!!

As it turns out, he has a stack of nearly-forgotten bookish invites to various literary events all around the world: Italy, France, Morocco, Japan, India, Germany…. so Less decides to accept every invitation, award ceremony, speaking engagement and teaching opportunity that was sent his way and embark on an around-the-world adventure.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

What follows is a zany series of misadventures, misunderstandings, missteps, and more than a few personal humiliations as Arthur attempts to run away from his problems — or at least momentarily forget about them which he discovers isn’t easy to do.

Along the way, he reminisces about his life, he meets up with former lovers and aging friends, makes new friends and even comes close to falling in love.

The story takes bits and pieces of his current life and his memories and weaves them together into a compelling, insightful narrative — and the author does it with wit and humor.

You know, this quirky book ponders many of life’s important questions — universal questions — so that in this way, it was entirely relatable.

It was especially relatable for me, being a gay male in his 50’s but I think that the universal nature of the themes in this book such as love, loss, nostalgia, lost opportunities, growing older, disappointment, searching for meaning in our life, and acceptance would render it relatable to most people.

This poignant and thought-provoking book had me from the get-go. I thought this was a beautifully written and meaningful book with wondrously descriptive scenes and lush, vibrant prose.

It was an intoxicating and profoundly engaging read with plenty of humor and heart, and I ended up loving the quirky character of Arthur Less. The writing was clever, witty, sophisticated, and utterly charming. I was also pleased with the emotional and entirely satisfying ending which cinched its 5-star rating for me.

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This is my first Fredrik Backman novel, and all I can say is: why did I wait so long?

THE STORY

This book follows a Man named Ove who is the cantankerous, curmudgeonly, grumpy and unfriendly neighbor that many of us have. He complains about everything, and he’s the kind of angry man who puts up signs around is neighborhood warning other about what they can and can’t do. He loathes technology and misses the days gone by when people could fix their own cars and knew how to repair things around their house.

For him, everything is black and white, and there’s a proper place for everything. If you don’t follow Ove’s rules, you’re an idiot — and he won’t hesitate to tell you so.

Ove’s tale unfolds when a new family moves into his neighborhood: Parvaneh, a very pregnant Iranian woman, her inept and lanky husband Patrick, and their two little girls. On the day they moved in, not only did they drive in an area where the sign clearly states that parking in residential areas is prohibited, but they also flattened Ove’s mailbox. We can certainly imagine how this unfolds.

But there’s a lot more to Ove than meets the eye. You see, his wife — the love of his life and the only person who really understood him — passed away recently and it’s quite apparent that Ove his still quite stricken by grief.

Lonely and depressed, he has no friends and he we get the impression that feels as though he’s outlived his usefulness. In fact, all he wants is to be left alone so he can put his plan together about how to join his wife in the coming days.

But the neighbors aren’t going to make it easy for him. Despite Ove’s repeated attempts at pushing everyone away, Parvaneh ends us striking up an odd friendship with Ove, and a good part of this book focuses on that friendship. She is determined to pull Ove from his self-imposed isolation often with quite hilarious results. Hell, she even manages to talk Ove into giving her driving lessons which had me laughing out loud.

There are also numerous other neighbors who come to him for assistance, interrupting his quiet, lonely life. But he always helps them because he can’t stand to watch them making a mess of things. There’s even a mangy alley cat who decides to adopt Ove, which led to some very touching and amusing scenes.

WHAT I LIKED

First off, this book had me laughing hysterically one moment, and dabbing at tears the next. So in this way, it was a heart-warming, funny and touching story. The excellent characterization drew me right in, and it was only with the greatest of reluctance that I let go at the end.

All of the characters were wonderful. They were well-fleshed out and utterly relatable. These are unique, multi-faceted characters who all have very human faces – ordinary people we could see in any neighborhood of any town or city, and the way they related to one another was delightful.

It was also fun to watch Ove rage against the machine as it were — specifically against bureaucracy and “men in white shirts.” I mean who of us hasn’t been there? This made me think of Doctor Who and his dislike of “men with clipboards.”

Now you may think: why would I want to read a book about a crabby old man? The thing about this story is that as it progresses, Ove becomes more ingrained into the lives of others and them into his, and in that process, he becomes more human, a delightful process that we get to watch unfold. The story weaves back and forth between Ove’s past and present, and we learn, in quite an eye-opening way, what brought him to this point in his life and we discover why he is the way he is, leading to an understanding and empathy with this angry man who we may have disliked at the beginning of the book. This is a perfect example about how we can’t “judge a book by its cover” and how we can’t really know a person until we discover their past and the events they’ve gone through in their lives.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

There were no niggles nor anything else that I disliked about this book. The only thing I didn’t care for was the exhaustive list of every car that Ove and his neighbor owned throughout the years. I found this kind of unnecessary but then again, I’m not a car person so this part I found a tad boring.

MY VERDICT

A Man Called Ove was an inspirational laugh out loud masterpiece that touched my soul with a beautiful, satisfying ending. This story is as thought-provoking and hopeful as it is emotional and sobering and I enjoyed every single moment of it. This is such a smart story, an eye-opening account of letting go of prejudices, of seeing beyond what we think we know. I believe that Backman exhibits an uncanny insight into the human condition and in so doing, causes us to care deeply about this grumpy old curmudgeon who does everything in his power to render himself unlikeable.

This was a touching and somewhat bittersweet tale of a lonely man trying to live in a world that is a little bit beyond his understanding and definitely outside of his comfort zone. But this wasn’t merely a story about a crabby old man, but instead, it is about love, kindness, and most importantly friendship. Though Ove may not seem to be a likable and relatable character initially, if you give him a chance, this old grump will steal your heart. He did mine.

This may end up being one of my favorite reads of 2018, and now I want to read everything I can by this author. Needless to say, this is a 5 star read for me.

You can check out A Man Called Ove here at Amazon or at The Book Depository.