By Susan Meissner, 2014, 400 pages, historical fiction

A Fall of Marigolds is a dual time-line story of two women touched by tragedy and connected by a silk scarf with marigolds woven across it.

The majority of the story follows Clara Wood, who saw the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911. There she lost a person she loved and blames herself because she had an appointment to meet him. She blames herself that he was on the floor where escape was not possible when the fire broke out. Clara refuses to talk about her trauma, escapes to Ellis Island to be a nurse in the immigration system there. She meets a man who recently lost his wife and nurses him back to health. In return he gives her a golden silk scarf with a marigold pattern. Six months later, she can’t live life fully in this in-between place, but neither can she make herself go back to Manhattan. She meets a man who recently lost his wife and in return for her kindnesses, he gives her a golden silk scarf with a bright marigold pattern. Through her interaction with him, she faces some real ethical questions.

Alongside Clara’s story is the story of Taryn Michaels, a fabric store employee who specializes in finding matches for antique fabrics. She has just picked up a golden scarf with marigolds and plans to meet her husband in a restaurant in the Twin Towers. She is late and witnesses the planes crashing into the towers. She too, loses someone she loves and blames herself, after all, she had invited him to the restaurant at the top of the tower for the morning of September 11. In the midst of her escape she loses the beautiful gold scarf. She has spent the next ten years keeping an eye out for a fabric that matches it with no success. Taryn finds herself in an in-between place where she can’t talk of her grief, or move ahead with her life.

I enjoyed the historical aspects of this book. I had never really thought much about the immigration process and how so many were not allowed to enter because of sickness. I didn’t realize there was a whole hospital and community of doctors and nurses on Ellis Island working to help the immigrants. Most of the history of the Twin Towers tragedy I was more familiar with. The escape from the dust and danger was suspenseful and well-written.

Clara takes a long time to be convinced it is time to let go of her grief and move on. Her friends seemed realistic in the ways they tried to help. I thought her tight hold on the past a little unrealistic, enough to give it four stars instead of five. I would have like to hear more of Taryn’s story, too. Some turns of the plot surprised me a lot!

Both girls learn the opportunity to choose love also carries the choice to hate. We do not control others’ choices with our own. Destiny is at work in both girls lives. They make choices, but there is a guiding hand that controls how the events play out. They needed to let go of things beyond their control and release the need to figure out whose fault it was. We can never assume we know the whole story about another person.

I picked up A Fall of Marigolds after reading The Day The World Came to Town by Jim DeFede. Before this September, I had never read a book about 9/11, neither had I ever heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire or Gander, Newfoundland. The Day The World Came to Town is the true story of how 38 jetliners heading for the US on September 11, 2001, had to be redirected to Gander, Newfoundland and how the town pulled together to take care of the many passengers who didn’t make it to their destinations. When over 6000 people arrived in the town of 10,300, the townspeople met them with an overwhelming show of friendship and goodwill.

Have you read either of these books? Have you read any other books by Susan Meissner? Would you recommend any other books about 9/11? Share your thoughts in the comments, please.

–Liz