The Street
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4.6 • 25 Ratings
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
With a new introduction from New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones, The Street was Ann Petry's first novel, originally published in 1946 and hailed by critics as a masterwork.
The Street tells the poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.
Lutie is confronted by racism, sexism, and classism on a daily basis in her pursuit of the American dream for herself and her son, Bub. Lutie fully subscribes to the belief that if she follows the adages of Benjamin Franklin by working hard and saving wisely, she will be able to achieve the dream of being financially independent.
The first novel by an African-American woman to sell more than a million copies, its haunting tale still resonates today.
“Petry is the writer we have been waiting for; hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose.”—Tayari Jones, New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews
Some Things Haven’t Changed…
As much as I hate to admit it, I resonated with this story in more ways than one.
Petry wrote this in 1946, but the weight Black women are expected to carry — silently, endlessly — hasn’t gone anywhere. The reality she captured felt so uncomfortably close that I had to put the book down a few times just to breathe. The time and place were so vivid that I actually dreamt of Harlem in the 40s — a place I’ve never even been. That’s how good the writing is.
The story follows Lutie as the main character, but what I appreciated as a newer reader is that Petry doesn’t just keep us in one lane. We get real insight into the other characters too — their motivations, their circumstances, their failures. Everyone’s story is handed to you straight, no sugarcoating.
It’s a man’s world — Lutie didn’t get the memo.
Fair warning: depending on where you are in life, this book will hit different. It covers race, poverty, sexism, and motherhood all at once — and not in a surface-level way. Petry goes deep, and she doesn’t let anyone off the hook.
I’d especially recommend this to anyone wanting to understand the plight of women — particularly Black women navigating systems that were never built for them. Heavy, but worth every page.