By Taylor Jasmine | On April 10, 2016 | Updated January 10, 2026 | Comments (0)
Betty Smith followed the blockbuster success of her first novel, the 1943 autobiographical A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with three more novels that drew upon her life experiences growing up and coming of age in immigrant communities. Maggie-Now (1958) was her third novel.
Another story of an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the early 1900s. Maggie-Now, her parents, and her husband are central to this story of of making a living and raising a family, with all the joys and challenges along the way.
The description from the 2012 edition’s publisher, Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On March 16, 2016 | Updated December 15, 2024 | Comments (6)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, published in 1943, is the best kind of classic — a book that can be revisited at various stages in life. Each time, it can be seen from a different perspective.
The overarching theme of this coming-of-age story is the power of family bonds.
In a second read-through you might catch some strong feminist themes, and in another, you might focus on what it means to live in poverty in a land of plenty. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On October 26, 2015 | Updated September 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
From the original review in the Indiana Gazette, April 1974. The seventeen short stories in Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, a collection by Grace Paley are not conventional ones, but for those interested in an impressionistic form of writing filled with lucid images and true dialogue, they are well worth the reading.
Miss Paley has chosen New York City to celebrate in her work, and it is her impressions of the many kinds of people who make up the city, as well as the city itself and the interplay between the two, which are distilled to make stories vivid.
As for the writing, it is often chatty, but never garrulous, saying exactly what the writer wants it to say and perhaps a little more to the reader who care to think about it a bit. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On October 24, 2015 | Updated January 10, 2026 | Comments (2)
For The Glass-Blowers (1963), one of Daphne du Maurier’s later novels, the author drew upon her own family history. Her ancestor, Robert Busson du Maurier, who was in the glass business, escaped to London from France at the start of the French Revolution.
The story is through letters written by Sophie Duval, the sister of the fictional version of Robert (also so named). They follow the family trajectory from her mother’s marriage into the family of glass blowers in 1747 through Robert’s death in 1811.
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By Taylor Jasmine | On October 13, 2015 | Updated September 30, 2022 | Comments (0)
From the original review in the Daily Independent Journal, San Rafael CA, September 1967). In several respects, Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith is extraordinary. The scene is Venice.
The two protagonists are Ray Garrett, an American whose young wife has recently committed suicide, and his father-in-law, Ed Coleman, who blames his son-in-law bitterly for his daughter’s death.
It soon becomes apparent that Coleman’s embitterment has become a madness, and that he is determined to kill Garrett. This novel deals with the ensuing hunt. Read More→
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