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  • The Narrows: A Novel
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The Narrows: A Novel Audio CD – Unabridged, May 25 2021

by Ann Petry (Author), Adenrele Ojo (Reader)
4.4 out of 5 stars 132 ratings
4.1 on Goodreads
675 ratings

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Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar due to the lack of better opportunities for an African-American man in a staid mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link's life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. Drinking in a bar together after the incident, “Camilo” discovers that her rescuer is African American and he learns that she is white. Unbeknownst to him, “Camilo” (actually Camilla Treadway Sheffield) is a wealthy married woman who has crossed the town's racial divide to relieve the tedium of her life. Thus brought together by chance, Link and Camilla draw each other into furtive encounters that violate the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their own town and times.

As The Narrows sweeps ahead to its shattering denouement, Petry shines a harsh yet richly truthful light on the deforming harm that race and class wreak on human lives. In a fascinating introduction to this new edition, Keith Clark discusses the prescience with which Petry chronicled the ways tabloid journalism, smug elitism, and mob mentality distort and demonize African-American men.

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  1. ISBN-10
    1713620928
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1713620921
  3. Edition
    Unabridged
  4. Publisher
    Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
  5. Publication date
    May 25 2021
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    13.46 x 1.27 x 17.02 cm
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Product description

About the Author

Ann Petry (1908-1997), a black novelist, short story writer, and writer of books for young people, is one of America's most distinguished authors. Ann began by studying pharmacology, and in 1934, received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Connecticut College of Pharmacy. She worked as a registered pharmacist in Old Saybrook and in Lyme, and during these years wrote several short stories. When she married George David Petry in 1938, the course of her life changed. They lived in New York City, and Ann went to work for the Harlem Amsterdam News. By 1941, she was covering general news stories and editing the women's pages of the People's Voice in Harlem. Her first published story appeared in 1943 in the Crisis, a magazine published monthly by the NAACP. Subsequent to that, she began work on her first novel, The Street, which was published in 1946 and for which she received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. Mrs. Petry has written two more novels, The Country Place and The Narrows, and numerous short stories, articles and children's books. In addition, she was appointed visiting professor of English at the University of Hawaii (1944 - 45) and has lectured widely throughout the United States. Ann returned with her husband to Old Saybrook in 1947 and lived there until here death. They have one daughter.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 25 2021
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Unabridged
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1713620928
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1713620921
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 234 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.46 x 1.27 x 17.02 cm
  • 鶹 Rank: #550 in Black & African American Literature (Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 132 ratings

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  1. Ann Lane Petry

    Ann Lane Petry

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  2. Ann Petry

    Ann Petry

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    ANN PETRY (1908–1997) was a reporter, pharmacist, teacher, and community activist. She illuminated the range of black and white experience in her novels, short stories, and other writing. Her book The Street was the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.

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4.4 out of 5 stars
132 global ratings

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Top reviews from Canada

  • Booklover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless Writing
    Reviewed in Canada on September 5, 2000
    The Narrows was written in 1953. Amazing. Timeless love story of a Dartmouth grad of history who happens to be black and a rich married heiress who happens to be white. Their lives intersect one night in Harlem and continue down a dangerous road of love, passion, and retribution. The star of the book is Link Williams, a young man adopted at the age of eight by Abbie Crunch and the Major. When the Major dies, Link feels invisible and finds a new home in the Last Chance bar where Bill Hod becomes his surrogate father, teaching Link what it means to be a man, a black man.
    He grows up strong and intelligent, but faltering in one area. The area of love. The woman that he chooses, the one he wants to marry unbeknownst to him is already married. Worst of all she is white. This breaks many hearts, the people who have loved him and taken care of him, Abbie Crunch, Weak Knees, Bill Hod, and the rest of the Last Chance patrons where Link is the heart and soul, all watch as he make this fatal mistake.
    Phenomenal writing, literature, pure art without the sensationalism that is prevalent in our books today.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Erren Geraud Kelly
    5.0 out of 5 stars forbidden love in new england
    Reviewed in Canada on January 31, 2001
    this one is about a interracial couple in connecticut in the 1950's...ms petry manages to handle this story with a cool handle never allow it to become merely tabloid fodder..some of the other plots that were interesting was link's relationship with bill hod, who was practically his father and the butler who marries a promisculous heavy-set black women...
    One person found this helpful
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  • KH Carson
    2.0 out of 5 stars A painfully dreadful read that culminates in an insightful deconstruction of systematic racism
    Reviewed in Canada on November 28, 2023
    I really wanted to like this book. Over her life, Ann Petry worked as a social worker and a journalist, taught courses and wrote for the NAACP, and conducted sociological studies on the influence of segregation on children. This work gave her a very sociological perspective on the world and ultimately influenced the creation of The Narrows, which breaks down systematic racism to illustrate how many moving pieces intersect to justify the vilification and murder of black people. In Petry’s own words: “My aim is to show how simply and easily the environment can change the course of a person’s life.” When I step back and consider the book in whole, it’s so beautiful I could cry, because Petry demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how sociology and psychology shape oppression. However, the experience of reading this book is painful. Beyond that, when taking any of the book’s parts on their own, there’s almost nothing to like about them. It’s like throwing a bunch of garbage at a canvas, yet it somehow makes the Mona Lisa.

    Petry wrote the book with a reflective perspective, using repetition and flashbacks to show how the past continuously interjects into the present and influences our behaviour. It doesn’t matter that Othello was written over 500 years ago, the story of a successful black man marrying a white woman to the displeasure of white men still influences the world around us, shaping perspectives and stereotypes. Petry also uses this reflective structure to demonstrate how childhood trauma shapes us long into adulthood. This reflective style is the crux of my problem with this book, because on the one hand, it is utterly brilliant. It artfully (and accurately) represents how the brain processes memory, how our social environment builds our identity from the ground up, and how we fall back onto sociological programming in times of stress. Yet on the other hand, this writing style is frustrating and boring to read. At times, the repetition becomes so overwhelming that it borders on obnoxious, which robs it of its power. Some scenes took forever to get through simply because the story had to continuously stop to repeat mantras or plot points that we've already seen a dozen times already. If not for this reflective perspective, the book could have easily been half or a third its size. While I think there's something meaningful to be found in this style, it certainly could have been cut down.

    On top of the irritating writing style, every character is terrible. Not even in a “they have flaws” kind of way, but in a "they're a freaking monster" way that left little for me to relate to, attach to, or root for. Link, the main character, beats his love interest (though this is played off as romantic "lovers' quarrels," which... certainly says something about the author and the time period). Bill Hod, a quasi-father figure, beats Link as a child, Camilla betrays her love interest in a sickeningly anti-feminist way, and Abbie cares more about being an upstanding citizen of “the Race” than being a good mother. Even characters who don’t do anything overtly wrong are presented with a kind of sleaziness – from Mamie Powther who is presented as sexually devious, to Jubine the photographer who exposes injustices perpetuated by the rich, but is described as little more than a "greedy voyeur." While this is largely influenced by the POV character and often reveals more about the speaker than the subject (Abbie perceives Mamie as disgustingly sexual, for example), every character's perspective is coloured by this pessimism towards other people, and by the end of the book, all that negativity begins to weigh on the narrative. While the book attempts to present every character with duality, it leans too far into their flaws, leaving little good behind to appreciate. There’s lots of fascinating psychological angles to this story, but likeability is hard to come by.

    As you can see, this book is a frustrating one for me. On the whole, I think it brilliantly explores how historical sociological scripts intersect with an individual's trauma and environment to shape oppression, but I can’t point to a single character or scene that I actually like. The reading experience is so dreadful that I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone, unless you're a literary scholar that's more interested in meaning than your own enjoyment. It's a real shame, too, because I do believe this book is something special, if only reading it wasn't such a drag.

    TL;DR: 2/5 stars. A painfully dreadful read that culminates in an insightful deconstruction of systematic racism.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Karen Barlow
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
    Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    When I finished this book, I felt as if I had an experience way beyond "just" reading a book. It lingers. It affected me on so many levels. Read this book. You won't be sorry.
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  • hazejo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully written story of love and racism
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2020
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    Not an easy read, but worth it. Totally different way of writing that keeps the reader on their toes, and holds you enthralled. A thought provoking and tragic story.
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  • PG
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2022
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    Good book
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  • Victoria Sponge
    5.0 out of 5 stars A most pertinent read for current times.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2020
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    A thought provoking and enlightening read, a real journey back in time.
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  • ANHBAMA
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read
    Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2020
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    The book is very good and a page Turner.
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