Ever since Barbra Streisand introduced me to the pleasures of listening to audiobooks, I’ve been hooked. Generally, I seek out and borrow specific books, like my comprehensive read through/listen to all available books by Barbara Kingsolver or my recent focus upon Ann Patchett’s work.
Sometimes, though, my searches are more broad. I set the filters to return only new audiobook releases, in English and “available now” and see what turns up. Using this technique, I’ve turned up some interesting reading material, but nothing has come close to inspiring the level of Wow I’m currently experiencing as I listen to Ann Petry’s debut novel, The Street.
There’s something bold and almost explorer-esque about picking up a book of which you have no prior information or knowledge. I’d never heard of Ann Petry, much less this particular novel which was originally published in 1946. The Street tells Lutie Johnson’s story, one of being recently separated and struggling as a single mother to provide the essentials to her son, while grasping onto the belief that with honest hard work comes eventual financial comfort and security.
Set in the 1940s, primarily in Harlem, we witness the repeated and consistent slamming of doors in Lutie’s face as she tries to climb out of the always present poverty which has been her life. The discrimination and assumptions about her morality continue to ring true nearly 80 years post publication and I’ve been enraged and heartbroken by Lutie’s story.
She just can’t catch a break.
The issues Lutie experiences remain universal – choices about needing to work to support the same child you must leave alone while you toil for too long to earn too little. There’s a barely suppressed threat of violence which is Lutie’s constant companion as she does her best to improve her situation through honest work, while navigating her way along The Street where she resides.
We come to meet others who live on The Street – the self made white businessman, Junto, who, along with Lutie’s neighbor (and Madam) Mrs. Hedges, clawed his way from the streets of Harlem to a life of power as a property owner who now holds deep influence in the neighborhood. There’s the Superintendent of the building who has, as Mrs. Hedges said, lived in basements for too long to remember how to be human. His obsession for Lutie and his desire for revenge when she repeatedly rebukes him, is bone chilling. He is the personification of evil.
Other characters, like Min, the Super’s most recent cohabitant, and Boots, a bandleader in whom Lutie briefly believes, provide their back stories of being mistreated and exploited as they do their best to simply exist in a world that has continually tried to prove to them that they are completely devoid of importance or value. Their stories are very different, as are the choices they make along the way, but they both display an awareness of their situations, as well as an acceptance of their circumstances.
There’s a passage where Boots expresses his adamant refusal to acquiesce to the demand of the draft board to appear that left me shaking, first with anger then with sadness.
“They can wave flags. They can tell me the Germans cut off baby’s behinds and rape women and turn black men into slaves. They can tell me any damn thing. none of it means anything…Because no matter how scared they are of Germans, they’re still more scared of me. I’m black, see? And they hate Germans, but they hate me worse…Don’t talk to me about Germans. They’re only doing the same thing in Europe that’s been done in this country since the time it started.”
Eighty years ago, folks.
Reading this book the very same week I’ve been talking with students about the Vietnam War has been incredibly and frustratingly sad. I am so exhausted by this country, by this world.
Poverty, single parenthood, racism, discrimination, exploitation, violence, lack of opportunities, unfairly wielded power, the constant and never ending fight to exist in a place that does not value you for whom you are as a human…it’s exhausting.
The Street itself is an ever present character in the novel and in Lutie’s life. The Street is where everything happens and where Lutie returns to day after day, night after night. The Street listens to everything and sees all. In theory, The Street is an avenue to other places but, as we learn, The Street may be impossible to leave behind.
Read this book.
Note: The Street has been optioned and is in development as a feature film.
DelSo 