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Ann Lane Petry - tribute

Black Issues Book Review, July-August, 2002 by Clarence V. Reynolds

The first time I read Ann Petry's novel The Street was in 1985, shortly after I had moved to Harlem. Within a few days of settling in to my apartment in a four-story walk-up, I plunged into the novel. So familiar was the setting that a young woman who lived on the third floor of the building could well have been the model for Petry's Lutie Johnson.

Weeks later, after I had explored the streets of Harlem for myself, I imagined a 31-year-old Petry walking through the neighborhood, fascinated by its sights, sounds and smells, and recreating the scene in her writing with exacting detail and honesty. It was those two qualities--her attention to detail and candor--that characterized Petry's storytelling.

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Seven years later, after moving to Burbank, California, I reread The Street. Living in an untried city, I needed whatever sense of familiarity I could muster. And Ann Petry unselfishly provided it. No matter how grim much of the novel was, it possessed the power to evoke and embrace comforting memories.

During the decades that followed the Harlem Renaissance, many black women writers were not as recognized on the literary scene as their male counterparts. And in the post-war period that followed, Petry established herself among an emerging number of black women writers who were having an impact, presenting their view of the world. In 1946, her book, The Street was the first novel written by an African-American woman to sell over two million copies, a phenomenal achievement even by today's standards.

Born October 12, 1908, Ann Lane Petry became an influential writer, activist and humanist, who many critics consider a visionary and one of the early black feminists. In the three novels and the numerous short stories she produced, Petry portrayed brave and truthful characters confronting racism and struggling with personal failures and fears. In the process, she illuminated the black experience in a way that had yet to be explored in African-American literature.

Unlike Lutie Johnson, Ann Lane Petry grew up in a middleclass, predominately white community in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, a small, seaside town about 110 miles or so from Harlem. Like her character though, Petry moved to Harlem to try to fulfill a dream.

Like most blacks at the time, Ann Lane encountered racial prejudice at an early age. But once she learned the history of her ancestors--four generations of African Americans in New England--it helped young Ann to cope with the cruelties of racism. Inspired by stories she read and others her mother told her, Ann developed an affinity for narrative and began writing. She enjoyed writing short stories and acting out her one-act plays. The only African American in her class at Old Saybrook High School, Ann Lane developed a slogan for a perfume advertisement while still in school.

After high school Petry enrolled in the University of Connecticut College of Pharmacology in 1929, and after receiving her doctorate in pharmacy, she followed in the footsteps of her father and aunt and became a pharmacist. Petry spent the next two years working in family-owned drugstores in Old Saybrook and Lyme, Connecticut. But in her spare time, she always managed to write.

In 1939, Ann Lane married George David Petry, a U.S. serviceman and aspiring mystery writer. After deciding to devote her energies to becoming an author, the couple moved to New York. That year, Petry published her first short story, a suspense romance in the Baltimore Afro-American. The story, "Marie of the Cabin" was penned under the pseudonym Arnold Petri, since Petry wanted to save her own name for "more serious" work.

Petry's first job in New York City was selling advertising at The Amsterdam News. She worked at the Harlem newspaper for four years before becoming a reporter for the People's Voice, a community weekly founded by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. At the People' s Voice, she edited the paper's women's column and covered everything from social events to news stories. As a journalist in one of the country's most exciting cultural and political centers, Petry immersed herself in Harlem life. As witness to the community's day-to-day struggles with violent crime, indecent housing, crippling unemployment, racial oppression and sexual harassment. Inevitably, the social conditions that plagued Harlem became an integral part of her writing. But reporting for the newspaper wasn't quite enough. Petry wanted to broaden her writing, so she enrolled in creative writing courses at Columbia University.

From 1938 to 1944, Petry wrote and published her short stories for several prominent black magazines, including The Crisis and Opportunity. In most of her stories, it was evident that her interaction with the people she met in Harlem greatly influenced her story lines. The poverty she observed in Harlem led Petry to take an active role in efforts to improve the community. As an activist, Petry helped found the Negro Women Incorporated, an advocacy group. She also became involved in an experimental after-school program at a Harlem school that was designed to help children whose parents oftentimes left them home alone because of work. She also became a member of the American Negro Theatre, something Petry credits for giving her an ear for dialogue.

Ann Lane Petry - tribute

Black Issues Book Review, July-August, 2002 by Clarence V. Reynolds

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