#31 Reading

My trip to Half Price Books on 12/29 to catch their 20% off sale was somewhat fruitful--I found 3 of the books I needed for my book club, and was able to start reading one of them right away. (Good thing, since the meeting is coming up on Saturday.)

The book chosen for this meeting was "Triangle" by Katharine Weber. I would give it 2.5 out of 5 stars. I thought the topics the book focused on (specifically, a survivor's story about factory fire in 1911 and music) didn't really go together. The musician in the story creates songs based on genetic codes or chemistry or biology, and a lot of the explanations of how he did that lost me. I can see where DNA/genetic code fits into the story, but it seemed like a stretch. I got to the point where I'd have to force myself not to skim those parts of the book--and it was a short book! I did like finding out more information on a part of history I had no idea about, but I would rather have read more about the historical part that present-day composers.

The review from Publisher's Weekly:
"The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 workers, most of them women, and galvanized efforts to reform working conditions in sweatshops. In Esther Gottesfeld, the last remaining survivor of the Triangle fire, Weber creates a believable and memorable witness to the horrors of that day. Esther managed to escape, but her fiance, Sam, and her sister, Pauline, both perished in the blaze. In 2001, Esther is living in a New York Jewish retirement home, visited often by her beloved granddaughter Rebecca and Rebecca's longtime partner, George Botkin. Rebecca and George's story and quirky rapport take up half of the book, and descriptions of George's music provide a needed counterpoint to the harrowing accounts of the fire and its aftermath. But Ruth Zion, a humorless but perceptive feminist scholar, sees inconsistencies in Esther's story and determines to ferret them out through repeated interviews with Esther and, after her death, with Rebecca. The novel carefully, and wrenchingly, allows both the reader and Rebecca to discover the secret truth about Esther and the Triangle without spelling it out; it is a truth that brings home the real sufferings of factory life as well as the human capacity to tell the stories we want to hear."