Thursday, March 20, 2014

A Fall of Marigolds

Fall of Marigolds
Susan Meissner
NAL Trade
February 4, 2014

 Idgie Says:
This book is surrounding two tragedies in New York history.  The stories loosely tie together, but the stronger and leading story is Clara's in the early 1900s.  She lost the love of her life in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and withdraws from the world as much as possible.  A twist to this is that Clara was fairly sheltered and the love of her life was a man she rode the elevator with each day, for two weeks only and they had not had one single date.  The main story is her coming back to life slowly.  The secondary story is 100 years later when Taryn loses her husband in 9/11.  

Both stories involve a scarf that's 100 years old and belongs to neither one of them.  Both are struggling to overcome great loss.  Taryn's story is completely believable and harsh, while Clara's two week mooney-eyed pining is a little harder to take - but the strong historical detail of the times truly keeps you interested in her life, even if you want to smack her and tell her to snap out of it already. 

Book Description:
A beautiful scarf, passed down through the generations, connects two women who learn that the weight of the world is made bearable by the love we give away....

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries…and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers…the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?