The Boston Girl: A Novel
Anita Diamant
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 1439199361
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
New York Times bestseller!
An unforgettable novel about a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century, told “with humor and optimism…through the eyes of an irresistible heroine” (People)—from the acclaimed author of The Red Tent.
Anita Diamant’s “vivid, affectionate portrait of American womanhood” (Los Angeles Times), follows the life of one woman, Addie Baum, through a period of dramatic change. Addie is The Boston Girl, the spirited daughter of an immigrant Jewish family, born in 1900 to parents who were unprepared for America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End of Boston, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine—a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, to finding the love of her life, eighty-five-year-old Addie recounts her adventures with humor and compassion for the naïve girl she once was.
Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Diamant’s previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world. “Diamant brings to life a piece of feminism’s forgotten history” (Good Housekeeping) in this “inspirational…page-turning portrait of immigrant life in the early twentieth century” (Booklist).
I wasn’t getting dizzy. I was completely out of breath when the song ended but Harold didn’t let go when a fox-trot started playing. I was counting the steps in my head, but I kept losing track and stumbling. Harold pulled me closer to him—he smelled like lemons and leather—and said, “You’re thinking. Just follow me and you’ll be fine.” He really knew what he was doing, because the way he steered me around the floor made me look good. When that song ended, he bowed and strutted over to the
high school I should have graduated from. All twenty seats were filled, and except for two American girls, the rest were daughters of immigrants like me. The teacher was Miss Powder, a tall, skinny lady—I couldn’t tell if she was twenty-five or forty-five. She stood up straight as a broomstick all the way to her hair, which was pulled into a tight little bun on top of her head. Before we even touched the machines, she talked like she expected us to be a disappointment. “None of you will take
teacher’s purple skies and yellow hills reminded me of the tinted postcards she sent from New Mexico. I could imagine Filomena reading that and smiling. Miss Chevalier introduced me to her friends, and what an impressive bunch. I met the president of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, the director of the Boston school lunch program, a history professor from Wellesley College, and a lady doctor with a thick German accent. The room was buzzing with conversations about politics and
made me feel like I was floating. He started walking me back to my boardinghouse but I didn’t want the evening to end, so I said I knew where to get the best coffee in Boston—if he wanted. Of course he wanted, so we went to Filomena’s favorite café in the North End, which was another long walk. The waiter sat us in a back corner where it was dark and quiet—as if he knew we wanted to be alone. I asked Aaron if he liked his work. He said yes but also no. They had made a big mistake by writing
Aaron’s got a fiancée, I bet he pops the question any day.” Levine was running around with a new camera asking people to say “cheese” and driving everyone crazy. But as usual, the pest with the camera turned out to be a hero. He had a terrible time getting my parents to cooperate, but he didn’t leave them alone until he got some good shots of them. That picture you put on the cover of your family history paper in seventh grade? That was from Jake’s bar mitzvah. When I finally found Betty, she