Betsy Brown - Softcover

Shange, Ntozake

3.84

678 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312134347 ISBN 13: 9780312134341

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 1998

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This is a unique and vividly told novel about a girl named Betsey Brown, an African American seventh-grader growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. While rendering a complete portrait of this girl, author Ntozake Shange also profiles her friends, her family, her home, her school, and her world. This world, though a work of fiction, is based closely and carefully on actual history, specifically on the nationwide school desegregation events of the Civil Rights movement in America’s recent past. As such, Betsey Brown is a historical novel that will speak to and broaden the perspectives of readers both familiar with and unaware of America’s domestic affairs of 1950s and 1960s.

Shange has set her story in the autumn of 1959, the year St. Louis started to desegregate its schools. In May of 1954, in its ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka--a verdict now seen by many as the origin of the Civil Rights movement--the United States Supreme Court outlawed school segregation. The novel is firmly located in the wake of this landmark ruling; the plot of Shange’s novel and the history of America’s quest for integration during the Civil Rights era are fundamentally entwined. Thus textual references abound to the watershed events at Little Rock’s Central High School in the September of 1957, for example, and to "fire-bombings and burningcrosses" in the South as well as "'battalions of police and crowds of crackers'" at a demonstration in St. Louis.

Betsey is the oldest child in a large, remarkable, and slightly eccentric African American family. Her father is a doctor who wakes his children each morning with point-blank questions about African history and Black culture while beating on a conga drum; her mother is a beautiful, refined, confident, and strong-willed social worker who is overwhelmed by the vast size of her young family and who cares very little for “all that nasty colored music.”

Indeed, Betsey’s whole existence can be seen as a perceptive, adventuresome, and still-developing hybrid of her parents’ most distinctive qualities. Her feelings of internal conflict are often clearer or easier to identify when seen as the collision of her father’s dreams and her mother’s manners, or her father’s music and her mother’s cosmetics. There are several fascinating characters in this novel—and encountering, describing, and trying to figure out these characters will appeal to students of all backgrounds—but the two characters who, after Betsey, most influence the directions, themes, and issues of this tale are Betsey’s mother and father, Jane and Greer. Their her parents' difficult marriage, like the difficult era of desegregation that has only begun in St. Louis and the rest of America, is the realistic, conflicted, yet ultimately hopeful backdrop before which Betsey’s lip-synching, poem-reciting, soul-searching, truth-seeking, tree-climbing, and fact-finding take place. In fact, her parents' stubborn disagreements, heartfelt reconciliations, past glories, and future worries are all, at various times in the book, anchored or else set adrift by the activities of theireldest daughter (and first teenager!). Betsey’s running away sends her parents into a vicious fight, while her subsequent return seems to bring them closer together (if only temporarily).

As a novel, Betsey Brown is panoramic yet personal. It tells us what being a Black student in the early days of American desegregation was like by showing us what being Betsey Brown is like. This is an episodic, character-driven saga of the Black experience in St. Louis at the end of the “Fabulous Fifties,” but it is also a story about the many and various—and basically familiar—growing pains of a precocious, passionate, spunky young protagonist. We see Betsey fall in love; make friends; say prayers; argue with, look after, inspire, and ignore her younger siblings; run away from home; return to those who love and value her above all else; and switch from a school she knows and enjoys to a school on the other side of town where she is a minority and an outcast. We see Betsey outside the very door of her womanhood, we are told all about the steps and path that have brought her to this door, and we are left to wonder at what she will find beyond it.

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Review:

A lyrical coming-of-age novel. "The New York Times"

The pages go whoosh! "Kirkus Reviews on Sin City"

Shange is a superb storyteller who keeps her eye on what brings her characters together rather than what separates them . After you've read Betsey Brown to yourself, you can read it aloud to a friend. "The New York Times Book Review"

It's the truth Betsey Brown is a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing. "Houston Post"

Shange has re-created a humorous, charming, and heartbreaking vision of St. Louis and the Brown family that will delight young and old. She can conjure, as if by magic.... "Betsey Brown" is like an enchanting melody. "St. Louis Post-Dispatch"

Ntozake Shange is a unique and gifted, literary executant and works under strong impulses to do things her own way despite settled conventions of craft. The author's peculiar chemistry (a synonym for talent), plus her singlemindedness, has brought her a decided victory. She has made Betsey Brown live. We care about the child and wonder what will happen to her, how she will fare. This doubtless was the author's intention and mission. "Chicago Sun Times"

No contemporary writer has Shange's uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points-of-view of so many different types of women. No wonder she has achieved an almost oracular status among her female readers. She is a writer of many masks. She can serenade you, and she can cut you; she can chirp, as well as growl; she can delight, as well as antagonize. "Ishmeal Reed"

"Betsey Brown "is a joy to read. Every sentence seems filled with a delicate, jubilant, sly, comical, musical brio. The energy, good humor, imagination and joie de vivre make this novella refreshing exception to most contemporary fiction. "Philip Lopate"

Ntozake Shange's writings compose one long, continuous song: by part blues medley, swaying gospel melody, plaintive torch ballad. "Washington Times""

A lyrical coming-of-age novel. The New York Times

The pages go whoosh! Kirkus Reviews on Sin City

It's the truth Betsey Brown is a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing. Houston Post

Shange has re-created a humorous, charming, and heartbreaking vision of St. Louis and the Brown family that will delight young and old. She can conjure, as if by magic.... Betsey Brown is like an enchanting melody. St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Betsey Brown is a joy to read. Every sentence seems filled with a delicate, jubilant, sly, comical, musical brio. The energy, good humor, imagination and joie de vivre make this novella refreshing exception to most contemporary fiction. Philip Lopate

Ntozake Shange's writings compose one long, continuous song: by part blues medley, swaying gospel melody, plaintive torch ballad. Washington Times

"A lyrical coming-of-age novel." --The New York Times

"The pages go whoosh!" --Kirkus Reviews on Sin City

"Shange is a superb storyteller who keeps her eye on what brings her characters together rather than what separates them.... After you've read Betsey Brown to yourself, you can read it aloud to a friend." --The New York Times Book Review

"It's the truth Betsey Brown is a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing." --Houston Post

"Shange has re-created a humorous, charming, and heartbreaking vision of St. Louis and the Brown family that will delight young and old. She can conjure, as if by magic.... Betsey Brown is like an enchanting melody." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Ntozake Shange is a unique and gifted, literary executant and works under strong impulses to do things her own way despite settled conventions of craft. The author's peculiar chemistry (a synonym for talent), plus her singlemindedness, has brought her a decided victory. She has made Betsey Brown live. We care about the child and wonder what will happen to her, how she will fare. This doubtless was the author's intention and mission." --Chicago Sun Times

"No contemporary writer has Shange's uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points-of-view of so many different types of women. No wonder she has achieved an almost oracular status among her female readers. She is a writer of many masks. She can serenade you, and she can cut you; she can chirp, as well as growl; she can delight, as well as antagonize." --Ishmeal Reed

"Betsey Brown is a joy to read. Every sentence seems filled with a delicate, jubilant, sly, comical, musical brio. The energy, good humor, imagination and joie de vivre make this novella refreshing exception to most contemporary fiction." --Philip Lopate

"Ntozake Shange's writings compose one long, continuous song: by part blues medley, swaying gospel melody, plaintive torch ballad." --Washington Times

About the Author:

Ntozake Shange is a renowned playwright, poet, and novelist. Her novels include Liliane and Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, both of which are available from Picador USA. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.

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