Book Review: A Fall of Marigolds

By Jessica Asbell

A Fall of Marigolds, by Susan Meissner, is about lost love, survivors guilt and the people who help us move past tragedy. It chronicles two of the biggest tragedies in New York City: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The book opens with Taryn, a widowed survivor of 9/11, whose husband was killed in the attacks. Shes now a single mom to her daughter, Kendal. She has survivors guilt, not only because she survived while her husband didnt, but also because she believes her husband died as a direct result of her actions. Most people dont know that shes a survivor until a picture of her and a florist in the midst of the debris is published in a magazine ten years later. In the picture, shes clutching an old marigold scarf, a scarf that ended up saving her and her daughters life.

Meissner also tells the story of Clara, a nurse who survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 only to leave the city to work at the hospital on Ellis Island. Clara feels the guilt of surviving this fire, particularly since the man she loved did not. As her story unfolds, we begin to see that she believes he would have survived had it not been for her, which makes it hard to move on from the tragedy. She meets an immigrant on Ellis Island whose wife died of Scarlet Fever on the ship ride over to America. He is wearing a marigold scarf, a scarf that was precious to his wife. As she cares for him during his own bout with Scarlet Fever, she finds herself with information about his wife that forces her to confront her own past.

As both Taryn and Clara have to confront the past so that they can face the future, they receive help along the way from surprising sources.