Brookland
Written by Emily Barton
Narrated by Ruth Ann Phimister
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
Related to Brookland
Related audiobooks
How Harry Riddles Made a Mega Amount of Money Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Familiarity Breeds Content: New and Selected Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGenerosity: An Enhancement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Louis D. Brandeis: A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Changed Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sins as Scarlet: An Inspector Iwata Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGoing Home Again Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Refund Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Always Crashing in the Same Car: A Novel after David Bowie Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Slowworm's Song Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Subversive: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Opium Queen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory: An Island Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew and Selected Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5England, England: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Unmade World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gabriel's Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of All Pigs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgetting Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alexander's Bridge (version 3) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5City of Dark Corners Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReginald Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Show - Episode 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComing to the Stage: Season 4 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Icons of Rock: In Their Own Words Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Stories of Bret Harte Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucien & Olivia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Aaron's Rod Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLuminous Airplanes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mysterious Portrait (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Historical Fiction For You
Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of Achilles: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Clan of the Cave Bear Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weyward: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neon Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alice Network: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rose Code: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Death on the Nile: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Quiet on the Western Front Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outlander Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Reformatory: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Schindler's List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Apothecary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Eve Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragon Teeth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Lost Names Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Keeper of Happy Endings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The River We Remember: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Brookland
50 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Prudence 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.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brookland 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).