Monday, August 07, 2006

Triangle

Just finished Katharine Weber's Triangle recently out in hardcover. A marvelous book! It's about the notorious Triangle shirtwaist fire of 1911. Esther Gottsfeld is the last of the survivors from the fire that claimed the lives of 150 workers, mostly women and children. She's told her story many, many times and now she's dying at age 106. The truth of what actually happened to Esther and her sister and her fiance seems illusive and Ruth Zion (love the name) is determined to find out.

An additional part of the plot, and a very important one, is the story of Rebecca, Esther's granddaughter, and George Botkin, her partner and ingenious musician whose music is "inspired by patterns found in nature, from Sierpinski triangles to human DNA to the Triangle fire itself."

Inspired by the life of Esther, George writes the Triangle Oratorio through which the true story of Esther and the Triangle fire is revealed. As in Weber's The Music Lesson the ending is unexpected and astonishing.

You must read it! :) the teach

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you!

Katharine Weber

www.katharineweber.com