Brookland

Written by Emily Barton

Narrated by Ruth Ann Phimister

Brooklyn native Emily Barton has received many accolades for her fiction, including a grant from the NEA. Here she tells the story of Prudence Winship, a woman living in late 18th-century New York who has a vision of a great bridge spanning the East River. After inheriting a gin distillery from her father, Prue uses her resources to undertake one of America's greatest public works projects. But many hardships threaten to curtail her efforts, and realizing her dream will not be an easy task. ". [a] stalwart, evocative second novel ..."-Publishers Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781461800286

Emily Barton

Emily Barton's fiction has appeared in Story, American Short Fiction, and Conjunctions. Her first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, called "blessedly post-ironic, engaging, and heartfelt" by Thomas Pynchon, won the Bard Fiction Prize and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is the recipient of a 2006 artist's grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews for Brookland

[maryreinert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[bookfest_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Prudence is the eldest daughter of a successful gin distiller. When no son is born, the father decides to allow Pru to join him in his business, an unusual choice in America's earliest days. Pru is followed into the business by her younger sister, Temperance, who is, ironically, quite a frequent tippler. A third sister, Pearl, is born mute and is overly sheltered by Pru. Her rebellion near the end of the novel is disastrous. One of the interesting aspects of the novel is that Pru and Tem succeed in overcoming the prejudices against women that would have limited their lives, yet they place even stricter limitations on Pearl's life because of her handicap.The main focus of the book is Pru's driven desire to build a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The process is covered in great detail, yet we know at the beginning of the book that the effort leads to disaster. Perhaps it is intended as a lesson in hubris but that doesn't align well with the generally feminist themes of the book.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The author has rave reviews from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, so I expected something special. This just never grabbed me though, and given the basic plot it should have. I love historical fiction and as a native New Yorker I love books about my city. I haven't seen many novels set in the New York City during and right after the Revolutionary War--a period when slavery was still legal in the state and much of Brooklyn, Queens--even Manhattan--were still forest and farms. The book is also centered on strong, active female characters. Because Matthew Winship has no sons, he trains his daughters to run his gin distillery. His eldest, Prudence, inheriting with her sisters, decides to build a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan. (Not the Brooklyn Bridge, which began construction much later in 1870. This bridge is fictional.) Every once in a while in history there are woman who break the mold of the roles the age sets for them, so I didn't find the premise all that improbable. But the farther into the book I got, the slower and slower I found myself reading. Too much of the book is taken up with Prue's guilt over her jealous curse at five-years-old of her younger sister, who was then born mute. It probably doesn't help that early on Prue admits she wasn't much of a mother, not caring much about her daughter until she misses her after her marriage. None of the characters ever really won my sympathy, and somehow I just never felt that sense of another place and time alien to my own that I find so fascinating in well-done historical fiction. Nothing here that kept me wanting to read, until around a third through the 400 page plus book I gave up.

[verucas_chaos · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to like this book because of my love for Brooklyn. I expected somewhat of a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but, was sorely disappointed. It was slow and hard to come to. I abandoned it after several chapters. I'll never know how it ended because I never really started reading it.

[mbergman_15 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brookland is Brooklyn in the years from the American Revolution to the early 1800s, remembered from 1822. It's another story of 3 sisters. They inherit a gin distillery from their father, & the oldes dreams of building a bridge to Manhattan. It's an ambitious and powerful, but slow-moving, story about a city, a family, a young woman's dreams & tragic flaws (she believes she caused her sister's disability by dursing her before she was born, then ends up cursing her by treating her as it she's cursed).