Looking for similar type books, e.g.:
Uniquely weird
– Jitterbug Perfume
– Geek Love
Poor white tragic:
– Bastard Out of Carolina
– Demon Copperhead
Turn of the Century NYC or London slums
– i can’t remember any of the fictional books I’ve read, but i do know nonfiction works by Dickens, London and Riis.
I’d really appreciate any recommendations. Thanks in advance!
by Pollywog94111
14 Comments
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
a little princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
fair and tender ladies by Lee Smith (Appalachia)
A tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.
If ‘poor white tragic’ is euphemism for ‘poor white trash’–a phrase that sounds offensive to both black people, poor or not, and poor white people–then the one that comes to my mind is set very far from the South: *The Beans of Egypt Maine’.
IIRC Stephen Crane;s *Maggie: A Girl of the Streets* , set in NYC, isn’t far off the period you’re looking for..
Glad you’ve seen Riis’s stuff. Might consider taking a look at Atget as well; his photo of a curbiside open sewer in a poor neighbourhood is memorable.
A couple of decades later than what you’re asking for but *Call It Sleep* by Henry Roth has the life in a NYC slum inhabited by immigrants pinned down..
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn* by Betty Smith. A sensitive and intelligent young girl grows up in a Brooklyn slum in the early 20th century. One of my favorite books. It came out in 1943. I discovered in a biography of Betty Smith that, much to her chagrin, her editors told her to clean up the language used in the book to make it more palatable to a broad audience. Originally there was a lot of swearing in it, as that was how people in her neighborhood actually talked.
*[Jews Without Money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_without_Money)* by Mike Gold. Semi-autobiographical novel of a Jewish immigrant young man in the 1890s growing up in poverty on the Lower East Side of NYC and becoming radicalized.
*[Call It Sleep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_It_Sleep)* by Henry Roth is about the same milieu and timeframe as *Jews Without Money.*
*[Studs Lonigan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studs_Lonigan)* is a trilogy by James T. Farrell about a young Irish-American man growing up in poverty on the South Side of Chicago in the first 1/3 of the 20th century.
The Gods of Gotham by Lindsay Faye deals in large part with crimes involving recent Irish immigrants. However, it’s set in 1845 and in NYC.
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell is about a family of gator farmers/performers in Florida and I think it hits a lot of the themes you’re looking for
Upton Sinclair edited The Cry for Justice.an anthology of the literature of social protest
It contains excerpts from many books that fit your request. You can find titles in that book
Look at the titles by **Erskine Caldwell**
Early 20th c. NYC tenement immigrants:
* When the Angels Left the Old Country (early 20th century NYC tenement immigrants)
Poor white tragic:
* Being Fishkill by Ruth Lehrer (technically marketed as YA, but read to me more like adult fiction)
* Brother and Sister Enter the Forest
* Deliver Me by Elle Nash
Weird:
* The Archive of Alternate Endings
* Liar, Dreamer, Thief
* Monarch by Candice Wuehle
* Walking Practice by Dolki Min
another title, heavy on the “weird”, if you want to call it that way: Solomon Gursky was here by Mordecai Richler.
it alternates time frames, so some of it is relatively modern. and it’s a bit of a stretch since the franklin expedition features strongly in the “backstory” part. that’s mid-19th.
but throwing it in because if you want slums, immigration and “weird”, Richler’s got you. the premise is a darkly magical-realist blend of indigenous Inuit and Jewish folklore, meets Forrest Gump in a non-sunny way, meets … well, the general history of Canada.
Poor White Tragic: pick up any of William Gay’s books