Brown Girl, Brownstones

by Paule Marshall

Book Overview

"An unforgettable novel, written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears." -- Herald Tribune Book Review"Passionate, compelling . . . an impressive accomplishment." -- Saturday Review"Remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control." -- The New Yorker
Selina's mother wants to stay in Brooklyn and earn enough money to buy a brownstone row house, but her father dreams only of returning to his island home...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486468321
• ISBN13: 9780486468327
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

these reviews are sad

i'm horrified at these reviews. marshall has put together a brilliant novel rich in prose and dialogue, an amazing work overall that should earn her the right to be identified with among the most important writers in the last half century. its funny how so much of our society is dumbed down to the point that a work of art is trashed because either people cant relate to it or dont grasp or understand it. if they dont understand words that the writer uses, they call that writer 'pretentious'. if the writer uses the language to its fullest capacity, they call the writer 'overly descriptive'. its quite a grim state of affairs when only these kind of comments prevail for such a transcendent novel. in today's lazy Western world of drive-thrus, TV dinners, and condensed 30 minute television shows with commercial breaks, people only want things easy, straight to the point. this is why our society is calcified. if you dont understand what Marshall is doing here, either take your loss silently and move on, or, better yet, research! read more! try and understand lyricism and poetics, the beauty of creatively accurate description. that's just the thing; we're so a-creative these days its opprobrious. to the self-professed white jewish girl in the suburbs who will probably never return to read this, there are cultures and worlds outside of your own that in fact do affect you. anyone who walks around thinking otherwise is foolish. immigrants havent played a role in the development of modern America? please. Brown Girl, Brownstones is not only important for its beauty, but also for its capturing of Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn around the time of World War II. the dialect and cadence of their speech is vibrantly bottled in the novel; someone said its hard to read. thats because its a transcription of a different dialect! if you take the time to read it, you'll eventually hear it in your head. the ability to transcribe different accents and dialects is quite a skill, and one that Marshall is not without. anyways, if you're a true lover of amazing prose and writing in general, you'll appreciate this novel. if you aren't, at least dont embarrass yourself by haranguing others with ignorance.

To all the misguided souls...

To all of the misguided souls who slammed this beautiful book, I feel sorry for you. Brown girl, Brownstones is a wonderful book for so many reasons but too many to go into now. Paule Marshall's piece is unique in that it gives a voice to a community so often left out of fiction writing: the Caribbean community in the United States. As a first generation Caribbean-American who grew up in Brooklyn, I was blown away the first time I read this book and found such startlingly familiar portrayals of the culture I claim. The dialogue flowed naturally and, although the chracter portrayals of some (esp. Deighton and Silla) might strike some as too extreme, my own experiences and even the testimony of sociological studies show that Marshall was right on the mark. The fact that the book didn't have a bang up ending is totally natural in that the book is a coming of age story of a young woman (how many people have a conclusive grip on who they are at 18) who must figure out her multipe identities as a young woman, a Black woman and and Afro-Caribbean woman not tied to her parents' homeland but not completely of this country either. Marshall's work is too poignant to be dismissed at first glance. I would encourage all those who couldn't find the beauty in Brownstones the first time to give it a second chance. To dismiss this book is not only dismissing the premiere work of Paule Marshall but also to miss out a rare glimpse into the dynamics of a community that is within our gates.

Brown Girl Brownstone = 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Marshall proves to me once again what an excellent author she is!

The novel is nothing short of spectacular.

The novel gave a real life understanding and depiction of a mother/ daughter relationship. Allowing the reader to be totally emersed in the novel. Her descriptions of the characters was in such detail that it left nothing to be desired.It shows that tough Silla's action may have been wrong she paid for it and in doing so lost her daughter , then regained her love and admiration