Another Brooklyn: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

August recalls the night her father took her and her brother from SweetGrove. For days leading up to this departure, their parents argued viciously and their mother vowed to start sleeping with a butcher knife under her pillow. She also claimed Clyde told her that August’s father slept with another woman recently, despite the fact that Clyde had already been dead for almost two years. These days, August’s father tries to entertain her and her brother by taking them to Coney Island on Saturdays and letting them go on the rides. During this period, August and her brother struggle to grasp the fact that they live in poverty, since they manage to get by rather well even though the family is short on money. Still, their apartment is small, and they’re forced to share a room while their father sleeps on a fold-out couch in the living room.

One day, Angela is dancing on the sidewalk when she suddenly stops and clenches her fists. August and the other girls ask what’s wrong, but she doesn’t say anything, simply shutting down as a woman hobbles by them on the street. This woman is unsteady and clearly addicted to drugs, but the girls hardly pay any attention to her. Instead of focusing on the woman, August thinks about how Angela’s hands remind her of her mother’s when they suddenly curled into fists. As the woman turns the corner, August wonders how she (August) is supposed to navigate life without a mother.

A beautiful young woman named Jennie moves into the apartment below August and her family. Jennie is from the Dominican Republic, but August feels as if she could easily have hailed from Tennessee. For this very reason, Jennie reminds August’s brother of their mother, so he whispers to August that their mother is “almost back now,” though their father instructs them to stay away from Jennie. During this period, August washes her brother’s hair and tells him to close his eyes and pretend that her hands belong to their mother.

August is acutely aware that the Vietnam War continues to rage on, especially since so many former soldiers wander through her neighborhood. Many of them are living on the streets and addicted to heroin, and August becomes used to the site of needles scattered on the ground. The children around her become so accustomed to the presence of addicts that they take bets about whether or not a stumbling man will fall over. Meanwhile, August hears Jennie leading men to her apartment, telling them not to touch her until they give her money. When August’s brother asks what these men are paying for, August says, “Just things.” 

August once again recalls her childhood in Tennessee, remembering what it was like to run through the lush land of SweetGrove. Although August’s family owned such a large farm, neither her father nor Clyde knew how to tend to it, so the task fell to August’s mother. Accordingly, August has memories of her mother working with her hands in the fields, turning the property into a flourishing oasis. However, a fire razed most of the fields the year August’s brother was born, and then the government reclaimed the majority of the land the following year, saying that there were too many years of unpaid taxes. Still, the large and quirky house remained in the possession of August’s family, and they made do with what they had—that is, until Clyde went to Vietnam and was killed in 1971, precipitating August’s mother’s breakdown.