∎ [PDF] Gratis The Street Ann Petry 9780395573808 Books

The Street Ann Petry 9780395573808 Books

Download As PDF : The Street Ann Petry 9780395573808 Books

The Street Ann Petry 9780395573808 Books

This book is nothing short of a CLASSIC. This novel is a timeless work that is powerfully and beautifully written. It was one of the first books written by an African-American to sell a million copies. I first read this book as a course requirement in a graduate English class about American novels. I remember feeling furious about the fact that I had not known about the novel before -- and I am a voracious reader. Why hadn't this brilliant novel been assigned at the "mainstream" university I attended as an undergraduate? It appears that, some years back, this groundbreaking novel was “rediscovered;” and, currently, it is being used at the high school, college and graduate school level. Indeed, it is the kind of book that, like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, one can plumb more and more from the book as one grows older and and becomes more advanced intellectually. The Street, set in the 1940s, is about a beautiful African American female, separated from her husband, who attempts to advance, as a single parent with a small son, against the forces of racism, discrimination, sexism, poverty and a gritty, crowded, segregated Harlem ghetto environment that is filled with challenges to living a decent quality of life, but is, nevertheless, reassuring, in some aspects, to its African American inhabitants. The 18 chapter book is a tour de force, and easily could have been written today because it brings forth a number of societal issues that are still highly problematic. Those problems include the ways in which Black male/female relationships are impacted by racism and poverty, and the shameful ways in which African American children in urban areas are often negatively, and unjustly, perceived and improperly educated.


Tags : The Street [Ann Petry] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. As much a historical document as it is a novel, this 1946 winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship is the poignant and unblinkingly honest story of a young black woman's struggle to live and raise her son by herself amid the violence,Ann Petry,The Street,Houghton Mifflin (P),0395573807,African American women,Fiction,Modern fiction,Mothers and sons

The Street Ann Petry 9780395573808 Books Reviews

Written in the most beautiful prose with an undertone of poetry. An amazing story succinctly but lyrically told, keeping the reader longing fir the next moment.
Highly , highly recommended.
Generally speaking I read about a book a week and this was definitely one of the best I read in 2018. The main character is good, flawed, naive and caught between a brutal reality and a dream of escape. The characters are vivid and the story of racism, limited options, violence against women and police brutality are all still true today.
I thought this was a very good book. However, after getting to know Lutie, I never would have thought it would have ended the way it did. Very out-of-character.
I read this on the recommendation of a friend and thoroughly loved the writing. I gave it 5 stars because I can't give it 4.5. My only quibble was the ending of the book. I just don't see the main character doing what she did at the end. That said, any other ending would have been quite complicated and probably added another 100 pages or so.

What I don't understand is why this book has disappeared? If it was such a classic in the 1950's why didn't it carry through like so many other classics?
Discovery of a brilliant writer is always exciting. "The Street" reminds me of the film "If Beale Street Could Talk." It is a story of love, sadness, a kind of terror, living just above the fringe of poverty and revealing the difficult pattern of life that features the story of a single black mother's loss of soul and human spirit in a world of indifference and racial bias. The story from the late '40s transcends the time, unfortunately. It is still relevant today and Ann Petry is an astute observer and translator of social injustice. "The Street" is steeped in melancholy, anger, tears and New York's richness and bitterness.
From beginning to end, we follow the life of a Black mother wanting to get her child out of poverty and getting knocked back at every turn. Poverty is prevalent for Black men not being able to find jobs and Black women having to work at menial, low paying service jobs for condescending Whites who treat them as though they were invisible, or worse, make comments very derogatory regarding sex, lack of morals and low intelligence.

Lutie is young, attractive and has an 8 year old son she has dreams for. Instead she is trying desperately to get him out of a three room slum apartment where a super is trying to rape her. She attracts the attention of unsavory men, both Black and get influential White.

When she needs money to save her son, She must decide how far she will go to get money to pay for a lawyer. Her decision presents a huge moral dilemma and what she did absolutely surprised me.

Other characters are presented who also have life changing decisions to make. All of the characters in this book are like layers of an onion - you just keep going layer by layer and get to know more and more about them.

It is also interesting that this story takes place in this 1940s yet could have been written today. It is just as relevant and the issues are the same.

While I thought the book was well written and enjoyed it for that reason, I did not enjoy knowing that the world is still so unfair.
Very much in the vein of Richard Wright’s “Native Son”, Petry leads us step by step into the murderous descent of Lutie Johnson.
It is a sad tale, filled with sad characters. However, each one’s own quiet madness is fully developed.
Petry’s personification of the street itself verges on Stephen King-style horror, as does her vivid descriptions of the interior apartments.
But it is the hunger of her characters that strikes the most melancholy chord. They are all people we hope we don’t know, and don’t want to know. They are all lost souls caught up in an un-winnable battle against The Street. And although we know from the first gust of wind blowing through the street that none of them will win - none of them can even HOPE to win - we still pray for their success with each turn of the page, until the soft snow falls at last on The Street - blotting out their mere existence.
This book is nothing short of a CLASSIC. This novel is a timeless work that is powerfully and beautifully written. It was one of the first books written by an African-American to sell a million copies. I first read this book as a course requirement in a graduate English class about American novels. I remember feeling furious about the fact that I had not known about the novel before -- and I am a voracious reader. Why hadn't this brilliant novel been assigned at the "mainstream" university I attended as an undergraduate? It appears that, some years back, this groundbreaking novel was “rediscovered;” and, currently, it is being used at the high school, college and graduate school level. Indeed, it is the kind of book that, like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, one can plumb more and more from the book as one grows older and and becomes more advanced intellectually. The Street, set in the 1940s, is about a beautiful African American female, separated from her husband, who attempts to advance, as a single parent with a small son, against the forces of racism, discrimination, sexism, poverty and a gritty, crowded, segregated Harlem ghetto environment that is filled with challenges to living a decent quality of life, but is, nevertheless, reassuring, in some aspects, to its African American inhabitants. The 18 chapter book is a tour de force, and easily could have been written today because it brings forth a number of societal issues that are still highly problematic. Those problems include the ways in which Black male/female relationships are impacted by racism and poverty, and the shameful ways in which African American children in urban areas are often negatively, and unjustly, perceived and improperly educated.