Review: The Street

The Street by Ann Petry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of Lutie Johnson and her son Bub. They are African Americans living in Harlem, probably sometime in the forties. The characters in this story were extremely well drawn, to the point that you, as the reader, could feel that you were those people and lived where they lived and could smell the street and see the garbage and corruption.

Lutie worked and studied very hard in order to try to pull them up out of poverty, but life was against her. African American men were refused jobs that paid a decent wage and the women had to work at menial jobs to support them. The men couldn't take it that their wives did all the working, so eventually marriages broke up. This was just the way it was.

Lutie tried to rise up out of that environment. She had dreams of singing and being able to provide properly for Bub, but the rich bosses had all the say.

This book is not a thriller, a murder or anything that could be considered high drama. Its just a very honest, day by day account of the life of one girl and her son. It is one of the best insightful books that I have read and would recommend this to anyone wishing to learn more about the history of the people of the Americas.



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