by Joan
Whenever I’m writing a new novel, I like to immerse myself
in the time period, researching not only non-fiction and memoir, but also
fiction. When I read the blurb about Anita Diamant’s latest novel, The Boston Girl, about a young
Jewish girl born to immigrants in early twentieth-century Boston, I immediately
ordered the book.
The youngest of three sisters, Addie Baum yearns for an education
and to become a true American. Her father spends most of his free time at the
synagogue and her mother, who speaks primarily Yiddish, complains about life in
this strange new country and mourns two boys she lost, one on the boat, another
in their first years here. She constantly harps on Addie for wanting more. When
Addie says maybe she doesn’t want to get married, Mameh says, “Are you so
stupid? Marriage and children are a woman’s crown.”
Addie’s eldest sister Betty is banished from the house for
taking a job in a shop so she doesn’t have to do factory work. Celia, the
meek and frail middle sister, marries a widower with two small boys and soon
becomes worn out from domestic life. Through a kind teacher Addie joins a
library group and sneaks off to Rockport lodge during the summer. She befriends
a group of girls who refer to themselves as the “mixed nuts,” for among them
are Irish, Italian and Jewish, then as now, a nationality as much as a
religion. Among these girls she learns compassion and friendship, sharing joy
and pain.
Naïve about men, at a dance Addie becomes infatuated with a
Coast Guard recruit and despite her friend Filomena’s warnings, leaves the
dance with him and later is too embarrassed to admit her friend was right. What
follows is a tender story of pre- and post-Depression era Boston, Addie’s quest
to learn, to find love, to win her mother’s elusive approval, to eek out a career in
journalism in a time when men expected women to fetch coffee for them. There’s
a heartbreaking scene late in the book when Addie misunderstands a moment of
tenderness with her mother.
The novel is told in flashback, with eighty-five year-old
Addie telling her story to her granddaughter. This adds a layer of nostalgia as
Addie reflects on how different things were then as now.
Reminiscent of Francie
Nolan in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
Addie will steal your heart in this poignant, coming of age tale. If you’re a
fan of audio books, Linda Lavin brilliantly voices Addie’s Boston dialect and
Jewish inflections.
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