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164 ratings, 3.32 average rating, 55 reviews
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published
February 20th 2007
by Picador
binding
Paperback, 496 pages
isbn
0312425805
(isbn13: 9780312425807)
description
Since her girlhood, Prudence Winship has gazed across the tidal straits from her home in Brooklyn to the city of Manhattan and yearned to bridge the d...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 270)
Read in March, 2007
recommends it for:
Brooklyn-ites
As a (kind of) writer of historical fiction with female main characters, I was excited to read about Prue Winship's foray into bridge-building and to see what Brooklyn was like over two centuries ago.
Instead, it made me nervous that my historical fiction was as trite, long-winded and BORING as this novel. Prue and her two sisters were very unlikeable, as much as Barton tried to make us sympathize with them. Prue's childhood curse on her sister was not a strong enough theme to keep ...more
Instead, it made me nervous that my historical fiction was as trite, long-winded and BORING as this novel. Prue and her two sisters were very unlikeable, as much as Barton tried to make us sympathize with them. Prue's childhood curse on her sister was not a strong enough theme to keep ...more
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Read in November, 2007
Decent historical fiction truly conveying a sense of the place and time, but Barton gets too bogged down in gin making and bridge building. The story also requires much suspension of disbelief about what the main character was capable of doing.
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Read in September, 2008
Quality, engaging historical fiction. Brookland is a novel that allows you to get a historical fiction fix with out the guilt. Spanning from the late Revolutionary War period into the 1820's the novel spans the once vast divide between Mannahata and the village of Brookland, which is present day Brooklyn. The story of the three Winship sisters, Prudence, Temperance, and the mute Pearl. Roxanna is their mother who slowly suicides herself into death and Matty is their father, the master gin dist...more
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Read in July, 2006
I've reconsidered a bit since I wrote this review a year and a half ago, but I still think this is an excellent book. Some have called it over-researched or overstuffed, but I think they're missing the point. Then again, history major ... the book was, like, designed for me.
From here:
Emily Barton's Brookland, a long, gloriously intelligent novel, illuminates the early days of this country's life. At the heart of the novel lies the story of Prudence Winship, whose aspirati...more
From here:
Emily Barton's Brookland, a long, gloriously intelligent novel, illuminates the early days of this country's life. At the heart of the novel lies the story of Prudence Winship, whose aspirati...more
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Read in December, 2007
The story of a woman who designs then has built a bridge over the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 1800, about 100 years before the actual Brooklyn Bridge was built.
This is amazingly well written, and basically a study of small-town people interacting among themselves and reluctantly with the larger society they live in. (Brooklyn at this time was a village of a few hundred, and Manhattan itself was in the tens of thousands.)
The way the main characters are describ...more
This is amazingly well written, and basically a study of small-town people interacting among themselves and reluctantly with the larger society they live in. (Brooklyn at this time was a village of a few hundred, and Manhattan itself was in the tens of thousands.)
The way the main characters are describ...more
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Read in January, 2007
i loved this book ... brooklyn heights in the late 1700's. i read it nine months ago or so & i still think about it. emily barton wove so tight and deep a story ... i'm not sure i've ever read something before where i have stepped back and been totally in awe of the writer's endurance ... wondered what fortitude and discipline she had to call upon in order to let this story come forth ... i cannot look at the cobblestone streets of brooklyn heights & dumbo or the expanse of water that s...more
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Read in September, 2007
Brookland is a historical novel about the building of the Brooklyn bridge. It was the idea of a woman who owned a gin distillery in Brooklyn (Brookland at that time) and wanted an easier way to ship her gin into New York. The book is more about family relationships than the building of the bridge. The sections about distilling gin are fascinating, but the story drags in several places, and I found myself skimming. When she learns her mother is pregnant, 5 year old Prudence (the main characte...more
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Brookland is a historical novel set in 18th-century Brooklyn. The Winship family raises a trio of unusual daughters who take over the gin mill and control their destinies in a way that was unique for the times. The eldest gambles the family business in order to build a bridge between New York and Brooklyn. Her vision causes stresses within the family. This was a quiet, epic novels that ends with a dramatic conclusion.
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Read in February, 2007
This book took me a bit to get into, and at first was a bit of a let-down. I'd read a review in the Sunday paper when it was first released and was really excited to read it, having lived in NYC and Brooklyn Heights earlier in my young adulthood. It was not what I expected, but about halfway through it I found that the characters - especially the sisters in the book - had endeared themselves to me and I couldn't wait to see what was next in store for them. I loved how strong and confident Prue w...more
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Read in September, 2008
This is a wonderful book, especially if you live in Brooklyn. Ms. Barton brings all of the old names to life, Joralemon, Remsen, Boerum, Livingston, Nostrand, etc. Brookland is an alternative history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. But it is much more than that. The author successfully creates the atmosphere of the tiny village of Brookland (Breukeland in Dutch) of the 18th and early 19th Centuries and delves deep into the family and community relationships that develop in such a sma...more
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Read in February, 2008
Didn't finish this one, though it has more merit than many books I've left to the dust mites. It paints a very compelling portrait of post-colonial, post-revolution Brooklyn, NY, with some slightly fantastical elements thrown in which reminded me of Winter's Tale (Mark Helprin) -- there is a childhood curse, continued allusions to the "land of the dead", and three women in 18th century America who not only run a gin distillary but who also conspire to build the first every brige acros...more
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Read in April, 2008
Fascinating story. Prue Winship takes over her father's gin distillery at a young age, and dreams of constructing a bridge across the East River connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan. Today, her level of ambition and involvement would be unusual; at the dawn of the 19th century, it's positively scandalous.
The narrative is engrossing, and I sympathized with all the characters, major and minor. No pure villains here. However, I didn't love the way things were tied up in the last quarter ...more
The narrative is engrossing, and I sympathized with all the characters, major and minor. No pure villains here. However, I didn't love the way things were tied up in the last quarter ...more
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Read in September, 2007
I finished this book under duress. I'm a fan of historical novels and had high hopes for this one as I love anything New York. Though I was intrigued by the plot, a woman's passion and unwaivering determination to build a bridge - what we know as the Brooklyn bridge - ultimately Barton's descriptions of Brookland and it's history was the most interesting part of the book. The side plots were lame and could easily have been cut leaving an entirely interesting read. However, Barton is very lon...more
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Read in January, 2008
In the end I really enjoyed this novel. Sometimes the descriptions of the characters fell short of how they were actually behaving, which threw me off, but I did care about them. During the tragic moments there would be a lump in my throat and a huge desire to keep reading to the next page. (a page turner) The author tossed in a few historical names and real Brooklyn places... but the bridge itself isn't true from what I've found. Also I really loved the parts about gin making, learned a lo...more
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Read in September, 2008
SO good! I read the author's first book, The Testament o Yves Gundrun, and adored it so I had very high expectations, which this book definitely met. It's all about a woman in 18th Century Brooklyn who dreams of building a bridge across the river to Manhattan, something which was imagined and attempted by many before Roebling came along in the late 19th C. But best of all, the whoel story takes place in Brooklyn Heights when there were still farms, houses, LAND! As someone who used to live nearb...more
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Read in August, 2008
This book felt like homework. I took it with me on vacation and made myself read it but I really wanted to be reading something else. It's slow and more like reading history than a novel. It's packed with information about late 18th century New York that is sometimes fascinating and sometimes deadly dull. But despite my complaints, I have found myself thinking a lot about the book after finishing it, and going over some of the themes in my head, so it wasn't all bad.
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Emily Barton is not only a wonderful person (and dear friend) but a wonderful author. Her heroine in this novel is someone with whom you can 100% identify, and yet she is removed from our world by many many years and much "progress." The author, a Harvard graduate, is clearly no stranger to studying her history, and uses it to spin a wonderful tale about a three sisters and a Gin Factory.
Feminism and alcohol are never a bad combination.
Feminism and alcohol are never a bad combination.
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Read in February, 2008
i enjoyed reading this, and found it compelling although it wasn't the best book i ever read. she certainly sacrificed plot for interesting historical details, but after living in brooklyn for 8 years and even on Rapelye street for one of them, it was fun to be in a map of Brooklyn's history. Reading about an old gin distillery was the best part. Even with as many gins as i pour and occasionally drink, I had no idea how gin was made.
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The vivid imagery and sheer scope of this book make it one of the most compelling works of historical fiction that I've read in a very long time. Barton imagines a post-Revolutionary Brooklyn in such brilliant detail that I can't wait for my next trip to the city to picture it all through the eyes of what it was before the Brooklyn Bridge spanned the East River. A beautiful story of strong women, family, history, love, and religion.
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Read in November, 2007
This is a slow reading book but I must say I ended up liking it very much. I'm also not so sure I am on board with the confusion on Pearl's underlying ability to have done what she is assumed to have done. I was not nearly so disturbed by the family dynamics as were some -- I kept myself in the time-frame of the story and thought it fit the period -- just me? -- which I think helped my appreciation of the book overall.
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