Writer Anita Diamant Captures A First-Generation 'Boston Girl'

"How did you get to be the woman you are today?" That's how writer Anita Diamant opens her new novel, "The Boston Girl." It's a question posed by a granddaughter to her 85-year-old grandmother and the novel's protagonist, Addie Baum.

Addie was born in 1900 as the daughter of Russian immigrants, growing up in a one-room tenement in Boston's North End. She becomes what she calls a "real Boston girl" — modern, educated, connected. But to get there, she must overcome challenges and tragedies, from the flu epidemic, to the suspicions of her old world parents about new world ways.

Anita Diamant, writer and award-winning journalist. Author of "The Boston Girl," "The Red Tent," "Day After Night," among others. She tweets @AnitaDiamant.