Book Review: A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

I'm normally not a fan of stories about 9/11, mostly because I cannot bear the pain of recollection these stories cause me. This is not to say that I do not remember the lives lost and destroyed by the horrific attacks on America that occurred that day. It's that I'm still healing. I still choke up talking to my current students, who were not even born when 9/11 happened in 2001, about the things we all witnessed on our televisions, things that rendered us all temporarily impotent in the face of evil.

So, I was surprised when I picked up this novel and was about four chapters into it when I realized it was a historical novel about not only the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City, but simultaneously about a parallel story in 2001 connected to one another by a scarf. By the time I made this discovery, I was already hooked into Clara's story, her devastating loss and grief. So, when I realized that Taryn's story was of her devastating loss and grief from the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11, I was unable to put the book aside. I pushed through my own grief at recalling the events and visions that remain with me today. And, I'm so glad I did.

Meissner is a masterful storyteller, weaving two separate, but eerily similar stories of women losing men they love, on whom they were pinning all their dreams for the future, in the horrific, human-caused catastrophes resulting in monstrous, senseless loss of life. Clara's and Taryn's stories are different, but remarkably similar, and I was mesmerized by the weaving of the novel's story between the two women's efforts to come to terms with their mourning and forge ahead with their lives. The scarf tying them together, a beautiful blue fabric background hosting marigolds, becomes a symbol for fragility and survival, strength born from weakness, the story of many women throughout the human experience.

I give A Fall of Marigolds a four out of five stars only because I wanted more! I wanted more from the ending--well maybe not more, but a different ending. I know this is not fair, to project my desires onto the book, the characters, or the writer, but I wanted somehow for Taryn's daughter to meet Clara's daughter. Fanciful and perhaps a bit cliche, but it was what I wanted for these two brave, broken women.

I am grateful to Meissner for tricking me into breaking my rule about not reading about 9/11. I think reading A Fall of Marigolds helped me heal a bit, too, right alongside Clara and Taryn. But just a little.