Has anyone read the book?

Periodically I try to get the book from the Brooklyn Library and it's never on the shelves. Always out with either interested readers or class assignments. I'll break down soon and get a copy from Amazon.

I'm particularly interested because I live in Williamsburg, the Brooklyn neighborhood where it's set (that's the Williamsburg Bridge at the end of the opening credits) and I've read that Betty Smith describes Williamsburg so carefully in the book, using local landmarks, that Brooklyn readers could easily follow Francie's wanderings through the neighborhood. I am looking forward to reading it very much.

The movie was excellent, but it was nowhere as good as the book. There was a personality about the book that the movie was unable to capture. If you haven't read the book, do yourself a favor and read it.

This book was required reading in my freshman English class in 1987. I have read at at least once a year since then. I have watched the movie a few times.The movie is really good but it stops long before the book ends. When you are reading the book it takes you along with Francie and her hardships, you see things through her eyes. I flinch when her cheek gets pinched for the penny the junk man gives her and my heart breaks when the pinch is no longer on the cheek on her face. I suggest this book to anyone, not just girls and women. Betty Smith wrote another simalarly styled book called Maggie-Now, I highly suggest any one that love "Tree" read that also.

Just finished it yesterday. What an experience. I was utterly flattened by the intense poignancy of emotion that was reached in the final pages. Betty Smith perfectly balanced the positives and negatives throughout the book without making the narrative seem too choppy or overly episodic. The dialogue and events tend to be somewhat more hard-boiled, rough and unrefined than in the film - readers beware.

Although, as mentioned, the ending's fierce emotionality laid me waste, as I'm sure it was meant to, I still would humbly suggest a slight alteration (please, no flames if you disagree):

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Francie is packing up to go to college in Michigan. It is her final Saturday - her final day - in her old familiar flat, in her neighborhood, in Brooklyn. She knows that very shortly there will be no neighborhood to return to, because when the war ends, the City plans to demolish the neighborhood and replace it with more modern housing.

Francie looks out her window and sees a little neighbor girl across the way sitting on the fire escape, just as Francie used to do so often, watching "the big girls" dressing up for their dates. Francie just now is dressing for her own date, and she sees the little girl watching her, just as Francie had watched "the big girls" so many years ago.

Francie yells across to the little neighbor girl, jokingly calling her "Francie," because of the resemblance to Francie's younger self. The little girl corrects Francie, shouting back her real name. Francie then shuts her window, murmuring to the little girl, "Goodbye, Francie." This is, among other things, a moment of supreme heartbreak: Francie is saying goodbye to her old self, and she knows that she has left her childhood behind just as surely as she is leaving the little neighbor girl, her home and neighborhood behind.

I am tempted to want to mitigate the heartbreak of this scene because it is the YOUNG Francie that we have known and loved through four-fifths of the novel. It is the CHILD and ADOLESCENT Francie who provides most of the narrative. Therefore ending the story JUST on the note of the Adult Francie saying goodbye to the Child Francie conveys an unnecessary sadness, especially at the moment of Francie's and her family's triumph. To me, it seems a bit callous for Francie to simply turn away that younger self who has sustained and nourished the narrative - and who most readers have by the novel's end, come to love, admire and want to protect. Yes, she is saying goodbye to her childhood and to her young self, but there is a finality in this goodbye that I find overly sad.

Therefore I tend to imagine a slight addition to the ending as written, namely: Francie notices the little girl, and acknowledges that the girl is a symbol of Francie's own youth. Then Francie whispers "Goodbye, Francie" to the little girl and she closes the window. Francie, as we know, has been sprucing up for a date. She turns to the mirror, where she sees the "new," adult Francie. A slow small smile curves her lips, and she whispers, "Hello, Francie."

Acknowledging and greeting her new self, just after acknowledging and saying goodbye to her old self, would round out the emotional tone of the final scene. "Both" Francies would have achieved a bond and a link, and the narrative assures the reader that Francie, though "new", is still "our" Francie and is carried in her heart.

Again, you're welcome to disagree, but please - no flames. There's no improving perfection, and most readers view the novel to be near-perfect. I intrude my changes only out of my own love for Francie and her home, and am simply saying that I would have enjoyed a less definitive and abrupt farewell to the young Francie and her old neighborhood.