January 31, 2011
Set in the lead-up to the racially turbulent summer of 1991 and Brooklyn's Crown Heights riots, this troubling and touching novel chronicles 18-year-old Grace's move from Trinidad to New York City in search of work and new opportunities, but her Sunday-through-Friday life as a live-in nanny is all the more stark when set against her weekends with a dirt-poor family that needs her just as surely as her demanding employers. Cinderella's wicked step-family have nothing on married-into-money Miriam, who runs Grace ragged with selfish demands, or haggard, penny-pinching Sylvia, stuck in a wretched apartment back in Brooklyn with three kids and unemployed baby-daddy Bo. Everyone shares desperation: Grace for a green card, Sylvia for a future, Miriam for acceptance. The language of the Caribbean sings through the pages, and if the adults misbehave and mismanage their lives, your heart breaks for the kids—Miriam's son, Ben, and the other Manhattan kids watched over by hired help who have their own codes of behavior in the parks and playgrounds. A too-tidy ending wraps it all up with a bow of hope, but the striving and sadness that precedes it is what sticks.
February 15, 2011
Trinidad teen journeys to America in 1989, only to find herself trapped in thankless domestic drudgery.
At 16, Grace leaves behind her small island village, her crippled diabetic father, her devout born-again mother and her younger sister. Upon arrival in New York City, the cousin who had promised to meet her flight doesn't show. She ends up in Brooklyn staying with Sylvia, a matronly woman she met at a Crown Heights street fair. But Sylvia's apartment is crowded and toxic: Lead paint peels off the walls, and one of Sylvia's three children is displaying neurological symptoms. Grace finds a nanny position in a Manhattan high rise with a Jewish couple, Miriam and Sol Bruckner. Her duties extend far beyond minding 3-year-old Ben Bruckner. In return for a bed near the washing machine and $200 a week (often less), she's expected to do all the household chores, cooking and laundry. Sol is passive-aggressive and may have had an affair with a previous West Indian employee, and Miriam alternately praises Grace and berates her for trivial infractions of arbitrary rules. The Bruckners agree to sponsor Grace for a green card but evade Grace's questions about the progress of her application. Grace finds solace among her fellow nannies, who, with their charges, convene daily at the playground in Union Square. Her friend Kathy, also from Trinidad, but from a wealthier family, introduces Grace to the nightclub scene. Dave, the gay man who occupies the penthouse of the Bruckners' building, seeks her help with his indoor tropical garden and becomes, besides Kathy, her sole trusted confidant. By age 18, Grace has learned dispiriting truths about almost everyone in her new home.
Despite lyrical prose, the narrative does not develop so much as unravel according to vagaries of chance. The Bruckners' casual cruelty beggars belief, but Grace's inability to fight back is even more implausible. However, Brown is a new voice with much to offer.
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Starred review from March 1, 2011
In the tradition of The Nanny Diaries, this debut novel features an evil Manhattan mommy and a sweet little boy but mixes in a lot of ethnic flair. Sixteen-year-old Grace leaves Trinidad to come to New York City and seek her fortune. Her father is ill, and she hopes to make enough to send money home. After a difficult start, she gets a job with the wealthy Bruckners, minding their adorable son, Ben. Both parents treat Grace as not only nanny but maid and servant. She picks up the mother's dirty underwear, does dishes daily, and is traipsed to the in-laws' house to serve at a party. What makes this title stand out from other nanny fiction is the author's focus on Grace's island culture and the West Indian nannies and friends with whom Grace spends time. Their cultural home away from home can be positive in its support system but also has its fair share of stressful relationships. VERDICT Revealing New York's melting pot at its most complicated, this interesting first novel is told from the perspective of someone who has been there and done that. Brown drew from her personal experience as a young immigrant nanny, and her story is fascinating, tender, and heartbreaking. [Selected by Voice as its Spring 2011 Publisher's Pick; Brown is profiled in "Spring Editors' Picks," LJ 2/15/11.--Ed.]--Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2011
Like The Nanny Diaries (2002) and The Help (2009), Minding Ben probes the racial and class dynamics between nannies and their wealthy employers. Sixteen-year-old Grace Caton cant wait to leave her tiny hometown in Trinidad for the exciting environs of New York City. However, when her cousin fails to pick her up at the airport, she gets her first clue that life in America might not be as glamorous as she expects. She is so relieved when she finally lands a job watching four-year-old Ben that she initially overlooks the fact that the Bruckners are only paying her $200 a week to do all their cooking, cleaning, and washing in between multiple trips to the playground, where she must contend with often-vicious backbiting among the West Indian nannies. In her off-hours, Grace rooms with a stressed-out single mother who is perpetually short on money and patience. In her first novel, Brown, herself an immigrant who worked as a nanny, brings alive both Graces quest to be independent and her resourcefulness in dealing with the condescension of Manhattans elite.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)