Triangle: A Novel

I had read about the Triangle fire of 1911 many years ago, so when this book popped up and was recommended by amazon.com I could not resist. This was an interesting book in more ways than one. It centers on the last living survivor of that disaster, who is now dying from natural causes of old age. She had apparently given numerous interviews to reporters concerning what she remembered about the fire, but as an old curmudgeon she really knew how to put reporters with inappropriate suggestions in their place (and shut them up!) To bad, we can't all take lessons on how to deal with such annoying people, whether reporters, nosy neighbors, invasive bosses, etc.Anyway, the story of the fire is intertwined with the current day through the old lady's granddaughter who she raised by herself after her only child died in a car accident. Of course, she spoke to her granddaughter about that time period, and about the loss of her beloved sister and her fiance. This woman did the smart thing, and did not lose her cool under pressure, maybe partly because she was bearing a child. So instead of screaming and running for the main door which would only open inward instead of outward, she headed toward the dooor the bosses used.In reading the nonfictional accounts of this disaster, it becomes all too clear that there were those men and women who showed bravery in the face of danger, and then there were those whose only thought was for themselves. To make matters worse, there were young children involved who sewed by hand, even though by that time, child labor was being banned. The horrendous conditions which made it only a matter of time before a disaster of this proportion occurred, were once again done at risk of lives just to make a profit. Sound familiar? Think about the recent mining 'accidents' in West Virginia, as well as the ongoing fight against pharmaceutical companies who push their medications for things those medicines were not intended for and whose contents had not been analyzed.This book followed a current fad in 'stream of consiousness' in which the older woman who is dying is rambling and her thoughts run into one another, similar to how we think without placing periods or commas at the end of one sentence and one idea, then immediately going on to another topic. This alternated with regular and descriptive chapters dealing with the granddaughter of this dying woman, who is trying to best handle her grandmother's wishes, while trying to stave off the reporter 'vultures' who are circling to get that lst piece of information that will mean a best-seller (even if the ideas are slightly less than truthful or a bit scandalouse in order to attract readers).This isn't my usual reading fare, but it was a good, fast-paced and well written book. It did not dwell too much on the fire, but focused instead on the heroics of many, and the continued lives of those who survived the fire. Life did go on, though many lives were forever changed because of the fire. And ultimately, the fire did lead to changes in rules, changes in how the rickety outer stairs were built, changes in fire departments and their equipment to make it more likely to save more lives. It also brought back the disaster of the Challenger, which was similar to the Triangle Fire in the push for necessary corrections. It still bothers me to this day, that those responsible for the Triangle fire, the Challenger fiasco, and other such catastrophes such as the Johnstown flood would never face real prison time. Instead they were able to buy themselves out of their predicaments. One can only hope that their memories and happy times were forever altered becauseof the lives they took.This story would make a good movie...Karen L. Sadler

Usually I know right where I'm going when I write a review but this book has me a bit stymied because of its thematic content. It is brilliant and beautifully written, literate and musical at the same time. It tackles great themes and does it subtly yet with a great strength. It is one of the finest books I've ever read.The story is about the Triangle Factory fire which was, prior to 9/11, the worst tragedy that ever befell New York. One hundred forty-six men, women and children were killed in a fire that occurred in a sweat shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. This fire helped spur unions to grow and protect workers. Had there been exits available when the fire occurred, almost all of the deaths could have been prevented. As the story opens, Esther Gottesfeld is 106 years old, the oldest survivor of the 1911 tragedy. It is shortly after 9/11 and the two events are synchronous in the story-telling. Esther is being interviewed by an arrogant feminist scholar, Ruth Zion, who is trying to find out information about the fire and pry secrets out of Esther. Esther is too wise and cagey for Ruth Zion to get very far.The story is also about Esther's granddaughter, Rebecca, who lives with George Botkin, the most famous composer of contemporary U.S. music. He writes music about DNA strands, chemistry, echinacea, and Huntington's Disease (which he may have inherited). His music is loved by a wide audience.The story weaves back and forth in time and between characters. The strongest parts of the book are those about Esther while the most original parts of the book are about George and Rebecca. There are secrets to be found out and secrets to be kept. One fascinating theme in the book is the connections between the Triangle Fire, 9/11, and music - another triangle. We find out that Rebecca and George share similar DNA strands. For two people very much in love, this seems serendipitous but also sweet.The ending of this book is dreamlike and written in stream of consciousness. I could not come up for air as its beauty swept me with it like a tide. The last 40 pages are as beautiful as anything I've ever read. I highly recommend this book.

Katharine Weber's 'Triangle' has the potential to be a very interesting read - a sort of literary detective story crossed with historical fiction. Esther Gottesfeld, the last survivor of the notorious 1911 Triangle factory fire (a real event) is dying at the age of 106. Her granddaughter Rebecca, a geneticist, is distracted from her grief at losing her last surviving relative by news that a feminist historian, Ruth Zion, is querying Esther's account of what happened to her in the Triangle fire. After Esther's death, Rebecca and her partner George Botkin (a genius composer, who later writes a 'Triangle Oratorio') determine to find out the truth about Esther's situation before Ruth does. Details of their lives and their attempts to find out what really happened to Esther run alongside Esther's testimony of events on the day of the fire, and her interviews with Ruth Zion - only in the final chapter of the book do we move back to 1911 entirely, and find out what really happened to Esther that fateful day.I'm giving this book three stars for the interesting information about immigrant life in New York in the 1910s, for the vivid and lively character of Esther, and for the relationship between her and Rebecca, which was very moving indeed. But otherwise I have to say I found this book profoundly annoying. It's one of those novels where the author is so desperate to show their own cleverness and wide range of knowledge that they end up sounding very pretentious and phoney, and creating completely implausible characters. To take one example - George is meant to be a genius composer the like of which the world has never seen before, because he can replicate the structures of DNA in music, and capture the complicated construction of amino acids in sound. But the author can't explain why this is a particularly good thing or really give us any idea of what George's music sounds like, and so George's work (pieces called 'Protein Rhapsodies' and a concerto inspired by Huntington's Disease which is in George's family) just sounds pretentious. The whole thing is unconvincing too - the response I got when mentioning it to a top musicologist says it all! I felt that repeating Esther's testimonies over and over again was a mistake too - you had to sit down and read incredibly slowly to work out the discrepancies between different versions, and it all became very repetitive. I wasn't sure why - other than to prove George's musical genius - the whole Huntington's Disease strand got put into the story as it didn't go anywhere (we never even found out whether George had the disease - unlikely if he hadn't showed signs of it by 51 I'd say). And it was never entirely clear how vital all the lectures on genetics were to the plot.And what was extraordinary about the book in the end was how its intellectualism ran alongside some ideas of rather surprising banality. For example (spoiler alert) the twist to the plot at the end involved someone living in disguise for many, many years - but Weber never explained how this could come about, and how no one ever recognized them for who they really were. Ruth Zion the feminist was a crude, ugly parody with speech of a pomposity that was improbable even in a naturally pompous person and therefore of no interest - and that whole episode with the cat, even though it didn't end nastily, was gratuitous and silly. As she had no depth and nothing interesting about her, there was no interest in reading about her conflict with Rebecca - Rebecca was simply 'the good one' and Ruth 'the bad'. I couldn't understand the whole thing about the glasses - that Esther would always be a prescription behind (wouldn't she have gone blind?). And I couldn't work out at all why finding out the secret of the Triangle fire seemed to give both George and Rebecca a personality change, so that they suddenly married, moved in together and adopted a Chinese orphan (and Weber SERIOUSLY underestimates how tiring and disorientating it would be to look after a small child at the age of 51 full-time). Other than the Esther-Sam and Esther-Rebecca relationships the interplay between people and how they felt about each other was seriously hard to work out in this book.In the end, I was glad I read the novel in that I found out more about life for immigrant Russian Jews in New York at the turn of the century, and about the Triangle fire. But this was a novel far too infatuated with its own cleverness, which led to a very bloodless and sometimes quite silly modern story.