Reviews - Maggie-Now | The StoryGraph

62 reviews for:

Distinct, well-defined characters who all have detailed internal and external lives. Pat’s blustery and broad, but I’m giving it a pass.

This book has a phenomenal, extremely only-in-New-York, ending. It moved me greatly with sentiment, humor, and wonder. One of the best finishes of any book, ever.

lindseysparks's review against another edition

4.0

Reread 2023: Sadly part of this is way more relevant now than it was when I read it 20 years ago.

sayitwithasmile's review against another edition

3.0

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my favorite books so I was excited to read another Betty Smith. Maggie-Now has Smith's compulsively readable writing and charming depictions of historic Williamsburg (albeit from the Irish American perspective, there are very few mentions of other people besides White Irish and European immigrants) but lacks the overall complexity that ATGIB provides. The book mostly centers on Margaret Moore, also known as Maggie-Now, and her relationship to the men in her life. She is ruled by three male figures: her father, Patrick Dennis Moore (aka Patsy Denny, later Pat) who is a crotchety Irish immigrant that seems to never be happy; her brother, Denny Moore, who was born to Maggie-Now's mother late in life and was handed to 16-year-old Maggie as her mother died; and her love, Claude Bassett, who is never happy staying in one place and continuously leaves her every March only to return at the first snow of the following winter. Unlike ATGIB's Francie, who very clearly portrays Smith's own feminist views, Maggie-Now is stuck in her circumstances and doesn't make much effort to escape them. She lives to care for these men, no matter how poorly she is treated (or ignored).

While there was an element of being stuck in your circumstances in ATGIB, the characters are crafted with care so even those that cause more pain, like Francie's father Johnny, are still loving and admirable in some ways. Pat Moore on the other hand seems to never have a good word for anyone, even his hard-working daughter who has given her whole life to care for her brother and father. Maggie-Now feels like Smith's criticism of a woman's role in society which she definitely accomplishes. You will find yourself cringing at what is expected of a young Catholic woman in a poor neighborhood. However, Maggie-Now is missing any element of fight and leaves you feeling hopeless at the world (despite this being 2020, 62 years after original publication). That all being said, I did fly through it despite the dreariness and it made me intrigued to read the rest of Smith's work.