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.

A Fall of Marigolds

 A Fall of Marigolds describes a scarf that is at the center of two different tragedies, taking place nearly 100 years apart. Susan Meissner use this to connect a story of loss at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the terror attacks in 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center towers.

In 1911, Clara is a nurse in New York City when she witnesses the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and suffers what she perceives as a great loss. She signs up to be a nurse on Ellis Island, so she can be in New York, but at an in-between place, that doesn't hold the meaning of Manhattan. There she meets an immigrant wearing the beautiful scarf. Clara learns that the scarf holds many secrets.

In Manhattan in 2011, approaching the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Taryn learns that there's a photo of her in People magazine wearing a scarf (the scarf) that she had just picked up from a client earlier that morning. Had she not picked up the scarf, more than likely she would have perished in the attack.

The dual story lines sounded very much up my alley, and even as I read the novel, I was interested to see how the two stories would be connected. In the end, the novel fell flat for me. It was more romance than historical fiction. There wasn't much to Taryn's story and while Clara's story was more compelling, it lacked something for me that I can't really specify. As to how the two stories connected in the end, I think I expected more.

This novel has gotten high praise in Renee's Reading Club, the group I belong to on Facebook, so it does hold a lot of appeal for others. But for me, it was just okay. A quick, easy, fluffy read. Which makes me wonder - how can a book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and 9/11 seem fluffy?

As Bright as Heaven

I wanted to learn a little bit more about life during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and this book was recommended to me. Susan Meissner's historical fiction novel, As Bright as Heaven, was one that was recommended to me.

Other than it being set in Philadelphia, an epicenter of that pandemic, I didn't learn much more than things were more of less like here now. Except that there was a war going on in England. And when people were stuck in their homes, they were stuck in their homes totally isolated. No internet. No TV. Now that I think of it, they never did mention listening to the radio or reading newspapers.

The Bright family of Quakertown, PA is invited to move to Philadelphia so the father, Thomas, can take over his uncle's funeral home. They'd just lost an infant son so the chance to start over somewhere else was appealing. Thomas Bright, his wife and 3 daughters head off to live with Uncle Fred.

The story follows the adaptation to life in the city and then the impact of the flu on the Bright family. Some survive, some don't. But those that are left behind have to live with the lingering effects of their life experiences. The girls deal with career choices and romance choices all influenced by what they experienced during the pandemic and the waning days of World War I.

This is much more a family drama about recovery after loss than it is specifically about a flu pandemic. It was easy to read and a change of pace from what I'd been reading.