Books with author Marshall Poe

Hailed by the Saturday Review as "passionate" and "compelling" and by The New Yorker as "remarkable for its courage," this 1959 coming-of-age story centers on the daughter of Barbadian immigrants living in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II. A precursor to feminist literature, this novel was written by and about an African-American woman.

Brown Girl, Brownstones, tells the story of a young Barbadian American caught between the ambitious dreams of her forward-looking mother and the rose-tinted nostalgia of her father. While Selina's mother strives diligently to save enough money to buy a brownstone in Brooklyn, her father dreams only of returning to his home in Barbados. Managing a constellation of difficult family and cultural dynamics, Selina is also faced with navigating the complex maze of immigrant identity in America and bearing the burdens of racism and poverty. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and WWII, the close-knit community of immigrants from Barbados where Selina grows up is drawn from the author's own experience as a young girl in Brooklyn. This novel, first published in 1959, was one of the first to probe the difficult cross-cultural conflicts and identities so integral to the experiences of America's innumerable immigrant communities. A vibrant and compelling tale of self-discovery, Brown Girl, Brownstones, is a striking and honest novel about a too-often overlooked American experience.

Set in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II, "Brown Girl, Brownstones" is the enduring story of a most extraordinary young woman. Selina Boyce, the daughter of Barbadian immigrants, is caught between the struggles of her hard-working, ambitious mother, who wants to "buy house" and educate her daughters, and her father, who longs to return to the land in Barbados. Selina seeks to define her own identity and values as she struggles to surmount the racism and poverty that surround her. Moving and powerful, "Brown Girl, Brownstones" is both a classic coming-of-age tale and a vivid portrait of one family's struggle to achieve the American Dream.