Brookland

I love a good piece of historical fiction, what we're given in Brookland is great. The story of the three sisters living in New York is full of details that brings the girls and their world into wonderful detail. Prudence is easily the most relatable sister, while Pearl is the one who broke my heart. Truly, I'm not sure I've read a better character in the past ten years.

The Bookschlepper reports: Shrewd, determined Prudence Winship (and the reader) learns to run her father's gin distillery and conceives of a cantilever bridge to Mannahata. Models are built, subscriptions sold. Gin persuades. Prue in her britches is immune to community norms and her fervor never-before-tried construction technique (amply described) possesses her as she takes the expedient course over and over. The back story is of a time when the new nation develops and new residents begin to provide competition to the sleepy, two-tavern town. In 1801, the bridge is almost completed when disaster strikes from uncomfortably close quarters. Prue, her sisters Pearl and Temperance and the town's early entrepreneurs are fully realized, nuanced characters. Barton chooses to let Prue be self-confident to the point of arrogance. This is an incredible novel, full of detail, insight, history and a conclusion that tugs at the heart.

Brookland was a tremendous pleasure to read. It's an excellent story, and the voice is consistent and convincing. Living in Brooklyn, it's wonderful to imagine what it was like more than 200 years ago, and Emily Barton does a beautiful job creating that world. The characters seem very real, in their faults as well as their dreams. It may be a bit on the gloomy side, but understandably: there are constant reminders of how hard life was, in ways it isn't so much anymore--so many babies dying, for one thing. I found it all fascinating.

A young woman in the 18th -century has a dream. Along with that dream she has the intelligence and wherewithal to accomplish her vision. The novel, Brookland tells her story beautifully. Prudence Winship, eldest of the three daughters of Matty and Roxana Winship, yearns to take on the running of the very successful distillery owned by her father. Her father trains her and she learns the distillery from top to bottom, insuring the future success of the company. "Prue," as she is called, is not satisfied to own a successful business and by earning the respect of her all-male crew, however. She challenges 18th-century sensibilities and dreams of constructing a bridge that spans the East River, with one leg of the bridge in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan. This daunting task is a formidable job in itself, but Prue's determination and drive cause chaos in her personal life, complicating the undertaking immensely. Brookland is a beautifully written story with rich details and engaging characters. Descriptive and interesting, reading the text is very much like watching a movie, as the written words become illustrations in themselves. A hefty volume of 496 pages, this is not light reading, but it is definitely good reading. Barton's first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, won the Bard Fiction Prize and a Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She will be a writer-in-residence at the New School from 2005-2006.

Good historical fiction must revolve around characters whose thoughts and personalities accurately reflect their time; one of the worst mistakes a writer can make is put modern thoughts, words, and actions into someone living in a totally different era. The idea of a colonial woman running a gin distillery and attempting to build a bridge across the East River at first glance might seem anachronistic-no woman in the 1700's would have even thought about it. But Prudence Winship is totally believable and her quest to build the bridge and its aftermath are convincing. The Winships are free thinkers who have carved their place by establishing a successful gin distillery. With only girls to inherit the business, Prudence and her sister Temperance take their place learning all aspects of the business while Pearl, a sister unable to speak, takes care of the household. The early death of their parents, puts Prudence in charge of the business sooner than expected, but also gives her the reason and confidence to pursue a dream of building a bridge to link Brooklyn to Manhatten. The bridge soons becomes an obsession which affects the lives of all the sisters and those they care about. The writing of this unusual look at colonial times is clean and straightforward. The story is told from the viewpoint of Prudence writing to her own grown daughter who wants to know more about the "missing pieces of her family history" - the subject everyone has avoided for so many years - the building of the bridge. The author skillfully interwines Prudence's thoughts to her daughter with the history. Since Pearl cannot speak, she must communicate through writing of notes; Pearl's spelling and wording remain faithful to colonial language. Although sometimes the details of distilling gin and engineering a bridge are almost more than I wanted to know, they project an authencity necessary for good historical fiction. This is a wonderful book and one that any lover of historical fiction should find fascinating.