The Boston Girl
Anita Diamant
Scribner
2014
Ms. Hen chose to read this book because she had wanted to
read a book by this author for a while. She happened to be walking by the West
End Branch of the Boston Public Library, and this book popped into her head, so
she went in, and by chance it was in there, on the shelf, waiting for her to
check it out.
Ms. Hen likes the title of this novel because she also
considers herself a Boston Girl. There are different incarnations of Boston
girls, and she thinks the young woman in this novel is a smart, savvy,
industrious person, and Ms. Hen thinks that if this is what it means to be a
Boston Girl, she thinks it’s a positive aspiration.
Ms. Hen thinks that this novel reminds her of A TREE GROWS
IN BROOKLYN in the way that it’s about a young woman trying to make her way in
the world during the beginning of the twentieth century, but this novel takes
place in Boston, and the character is Jewish. The same pathos is there, the
poverty, the lack of education, hardship, and the desire for a better life.
This novel makes Ms. Hen think of her own family’s history.
Her family lived in Boston at the time the novel took place, in the Charlestown
neighborhood, and her grandmother was slightly younger than Addie Baum. Ms. Hen
had an aunt who was exactly the same age as Addie, born in 1900, and Ms. Hen
knew her when she was growing up. Ms. Hen can’t imagine her Aunt Mary having as
much gumption as the woman in this novel, however. She doesn’t picture her aunt
fighting for causes and having her friend listen in on phone conversations at
the telephone company to find out where to apply for a job. But this is what Addie Baum does.
Addie is a young woman who lives with her parents and sister
in the North End of Boston, where many immigrant families live from different
countries: Italians, Irish and Jewish people all live adjacent to each other,
and the young people are friends. Addie has several friends from different ethnicities, that she meets at a place called the Saturday club, where young women
socialize. Addie has problems with her mother and father; they don’t understand
her, and she is taken out of high school because her sister gets married and
cannot work to support the family anymore. Addie misses going to school, but
she works successfully as a secretary for her brother-in-law. She has several
jobs, and dates men, and finally falls in love.
This is not a love story, nor a women’s novel. This is a
novel about a woman who learns to get what she wants and to help others to get
what they want. She has friends, and her friends take care of her, and she
takes care of them. At first she doesn’t know what she wants from her life, but
then she discovers it as she goes along. This is a novel about the journey of
one woman’s life, and the character finding herself.
Ms. Hen was excited there are chickens in this novel. At
Thanksgiving the family plans to have a chicken instead of a turkey. “ 'Trief
meat in my house?’ Celia whispered, like she didn’t want God to know. She
rubbed her hand up and down her cheeks
‘No. If it has to be, you can come her to eat, but chicken from the
kosher butcher.’ ” The girls fight, but Celia wins and they have chicken for
Thanksgiving.
Ms. Hen thinks this is a nice novel, but not too nice. The
author doesn’t sugarcoat things, but tells things the way they are. Ms. Hen doesn’t
like books that are sappy, but she thinks THE BOSTON GIRL has enough edge to
keep her interested. Ms. Hen enjoyed Boston as a character in the novel; she
knew a lot of the places described, which are still there. Ms. Hen likes being
a Boston girl, or a Boston hen, and she admires Addie Baum for living a life
with purpose.
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