The Narrows

by Ann Petry

Book Overview

When Link Williams, a college-educated twenty-six-year old African American man, falls for Camilla Sheffield, a wealthy married white woman, things will never be the same in the sleepy New England town of Monmouth, Connecticut. Set in the 1950s, this unforgettable classic deftly evokes a tragic love affair and offers a window onto the powerful ways in which class and race intersected in midcentury America.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810135515
• ISBN13: 9780810135512
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

great novel

Such a great novel. I will read it again, but this time slover and with notetaking.

forbidden love in new england

this one is about a interracial couple in connecticut in the 1950's...ms petry manages to handle this story with a cool handle never allow it to become merely tabloid fodder..some of the other plots that were interesting was link's relationship with bill hod, who was practically his father and the butler who marries a promisculous heavy-set black women...

Timeless Writing

The Narrows was written in 1953. Amazing. Timeless love story of a Dartmouth grad of history who happens to be black and a rich married heiress who happens to be white. Their lives intersect one night in Harlem and continue down a dangerous road of love, passion, and retribution. The star of the book is Link Williams, a young man adopted at the age of eight by Abbie Crunch and the Major. When the Major dies, Link feels invisible and finds a new home in the Last Chance bar where Bill Hod becomes his surrogate father, teaching Link what it means to be a man, a black man. He grows up strong and intelligent, but faltering in one area. The area of love. The woman that he chooses, the one he wants to marry unbeknownst to him is already married. Worst of all she is white. This breaks many hearts, the people who have loved him and taken care of him, Abbie Crunch, Weak Knees, Bill Hod, and the rest of the Last Chance patrons where Link is the heart and soul, all watch as he make this fatal mistake.Phenomenal writing, literature, pure art without the sensationalism that is prevalent in our books today.