By the Rivers of Brooklyn is a novel about three generations of women from St. John’s, Newfoundland. In 1924, Rose Evans and Ethel Moores move to Brooklyn, New York, as so many young Newfoundlanders of their generation did. There they join Rose’s brothers, Jim and Bert, who are steelworkers on the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Ethel is engaged to Bert, but when tragedy strikes, her life takes an unexpected turn. Meanwhile, Rose longs for excitement and adventure in New York, while back in St. John’s her sister Annie, the family’s “home girl,” looks after her aging parents and provides the family with its anchor and centre.
As the women of the Evans family live, love, hope, hurt and betray, their story sprawls across three countries and three generations, always haunted by the home they’ve left behind.
In the pages below I’ve tried to give a little background information about the novel — kind of a “behind the scenes DVD extras” that may interest some readers.
How much of the novel is based on real life?
What’s the real story with Newfoundlanders in Brooklyn?
Why did you choose to write about characters who are members of the Salvation Army?
What is with the Brooklyn storefront churches with the bizarre names?
Any other questions you’d like to see answered? Post a comment below and I’ll see what I can do.
By the Rivers of Brooklyn 