The Arrogant Years by Lucette Lagnado

Author:Lucette Lagnado
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Edith surrounded by books at her desk at the Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, circa 1970.

It was an enormous trek, and I would find myself worrying about her as she sprinted toward Grand Army Plaza. She had a choice of routes, but none was especially pleasant; and they all required her to cross the biggest, most dangerous traffic circle in New York. Grand Army Plaza was a maze of converging streets and dizzying thoroughfares—Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park West, Eastern Parkway, Vanderbilt Avenue, Plaza Street, Union Street—and crossing it meant taking your life into your hands.

The walk was arduous even in the best of circumstances. Occasionally, she’d cut through a small park that led directly to the archway at Grand Army Plaza, but it, too, had its drawbacks. One day, she was accosted and knocked to the ground by one of the young thugs who lay claim to this deserted patch of grass. She learned to simply run, run through it to get to work.

Once she made it to the stately old building shaped like an open book, she could breathe again. She loved the grand entrance with its shiny bronze statuettes of literary icons—Tom Sawyer, Rip Van Winkle, Hester Prynne, even Moby Dick and the Raven.

From the start, she found the library embracing and safe, a world unto itself, a family even as ours was crumbling. Suzette had taken several trips to Miami and was hoping to settle there, despite Mom’s entreaties that she stay close to home. Isaac had left us a couple of years earlier, first to attend a state university in Memphis, then transferring to Bowdoin, at that time a Waspy, preppy men’s college nearly four hundred miles away in Maine. Every once in a while César spoke of moving out as well. He was barely around, always off with some girlfriend or attending night school or working late.

That left Dad and Mom and me in our vast new apartment, hanging on to each other for dear life.

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