Brownstone, a proletarian, slice-of-life novel set during the McCarthy Era was described by a Negro journalist in a dispatch for circulation among Negro newspapers as "a novel for readers weary of sensationalism, brutality and despair. The story discloses the drama in the lives of ordinary people thrown together in a brownstone-front rooming house on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It is held together by Martha, the Negro housekeeper....portrayed...