The Nature of Fragile Things

The Nature of Fragile Things is the third Susan Meissner novel that I've read in a little over a year. At the start of the pandemic, curious about life during the time of the Spanish flu, I read As Bright As Heaven. Then this past September, I picked up A Fall of Marigolds which dealt with the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and September 11th. The Nature of Fragile Things is by far my favorite.

I didn't read the blurb carefully enough to know that this really wasn't about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. That was merely the backdrop. (I guess that was the case with the previous two novels that I read.) The Nature of Fragile Things is about Sophie, mail order bride to Martin Hocking. Sophie had emigrated from Ireland to New York City. She answered Martin's newspaper ad for a wife and a mother for his daughter, Kat. Sophie takes the train across the country. Martin picks her up at the train station and they quickly head off to get married. Sophie's life in San Francisco is more comfortable than she ever imagined and while she never develops a real affection for Martin - who is quite odd - her affection for silent Kat grows and grows, as does her concern over why Kat so rarely speaks.

A stranger had come knocking at the door of Sophie and Martin's house on the eve of the great earthquake which answers some of Sophie's questions but unravels a few more. It has Sophie leaving San Francisco to get some of her questions answered, especially those regarding Kat.

The Nature of Fragile Things is a novel about what it means to be a mother, a wife and a friend. It demonstrates how strong women's friendships can be.

This wasn't great literature, but it was a pleasure to read.