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Opening Poem

• The book opens with a poem by Langston Hughes.

• The poem addresses the alternate possibilities that can happen when a dream is deferred.

Chapter 1

• Brewster Place is a series of tenement apartments walled off from the growth and opportunity of the city.

• The first generations of people to live in Brewster Place were Irish and Mediterranean.

• Ben, the maintenance man, is the first black to live at Brewster Place.

• Ben has a woeful past and drowns his sorrows in cheap wine.

• Eventually the Mediterraneans moved away and the black people move in.

Chapter 2, Part 1

• Mattie Michael is moving into Brewster Place and carries her memories of her Tennessee life--her father, her son, and the father of her child.

• The story flashes back to Mattie's girlhood when she is seduced by a charming boy named Butch.

• Butch seduces Mattie in a sugar cane field and lets her...

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