MAGGIE- NOW

by Betty Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 19, 1958

The turn of the century through its first thirty years backgrounds a story of immigrant Irish in a slowly deteriorating section of Brooklyn. And center to the story, with its slow paced rhythm, is Maggie-Now, a girl growing up to the responsibilities thrown her way. There was her father, a leaner from his boyhood in County Connemora, whence he fled to escape the gibes and the trammels of marriage- only to get caught again in Brooklyn; there was her mother, who married Pat Dennis, but could never stand up to him; there was Denny, her brother, left an infant in Maggie-Now's competent hands. And then there was Claude, with a smattering of book learning, and a way of making her feel a queen, who married her -- and worked for a few weeks -- and loafed for a few months- and left her each March, when the chinook blew its summons to travel. There were others, too, who found Maggie-Now someone to depend upon:- good friends among the little people of the district; Father Flynn, who nurtured her faith and understood her problems; Gus and Big Red and Lottie and others, drawn with sure instinct and perceptive warmth. It is a rich canvas, and Maggie-Now makes her own strange mark. But somehow, for this reader, it lacked the warmth and the humor of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn though it comes nearer to its stature than anything else Betty Smith has written.

Pub Date: Feb. 19, 1958

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1958

Categories: FICTION