Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner

The novel opesn with thirteen-year-old Raisa recovering from typhus. She is being cared for by Glukel, the neighbour who took in Raisa and her older sister Hena years ago after their mama died. Raisa discovers her hair has been cut short which Glukel explains was done because "...Too much hair drains away a sick person's strength."  Raisa learns that during her illness, Glukel's nephew, Nathan who lived with them, has also died.

It was because of Nathan that Henda left the shtetl in Poland for America four years ago. Henda had to leave because Nathan refused to leave her alone, determined that she should marry him.

When Raisa begins to feel stronger, Reb Avner, the rabbi comes to speak with her and tells Raisa that he knows Henda has been sending Reb Laski money so that she could also travel to America. Before she left, Henda gave Reb Laski their mother's jewelry and a pair of silver candlesticks. Once there was enough money for Raisa to travel, Reb Laski sent a messenger to the shtetl from Warsaw with the candlesticks and the message that there was now money for Raisa but he didn't know where she lived. Instead he was told by the innkeeper's son that Raisa had died and the messenger and the candlesticks returned to Warsaw. And Henda was sent a letter telling her of Raisa's death.

Glukel accepts that Raisa is leaving for America. During her recovery Raisa is visited by her friends Yitta, Avigal and Dina as well as the blacksmith Yossel and his wife Sarah. When she is well enough, Raisa travels to the train station by peddler trusted by Reb Avner and after various means arrives at the port of Bremerhaven in Germany. There she passes an inspection by the doctor and is allowed to board the ship for America. On board she is taken down into the ship where her berth is in the crowded, smelly belly. There she is befriended by another young Jewish girl, Zusa Reshevsky who is travelling for America to join her mother. Zusa speaks German, Yiddish and Polish and teaches Raisa how to read Yiddish. Their journey is uneventful until a little girl named Brina is orphaned and Raisa and Zusa decide to care for her.

When they arrive in Hoboken, N.J., the three girls along with the other steerage passengers are ferried to Ellis Island where Raisa and Brina become separated from Zusa. Raisa and Brina pass their physical examinations and  enter New York city. There, Raisa intervenes to help Luciana, an Italian girl she met on the boat, from being kidnapped by a group of people. Luciana is freed by her brother Paolo and his friends who arrive to help Raisa. In thanks for her help, Paolo and Luciana help her located Henda's apartment building and tell her that if she should need more help to come to Delvecchio's grocery on Mulberry.

Raisa discovers that Henda has been missing for months. She learns from Bayleh, a Jewish woman who lives on the fifth floor,  that Henda was sorking at the American Pride Ladies' Garment company until the big strike a year ago. Henda walked out but when the strike ended after four months,  she was not hired back because she was so involved in fighting for workers' rights. Bayleh also tells Raisa that her sister received a letter that deeply upset her and that a man Henda was seeing came and took her away. Raisa realizes that Henda received the letter falsely informing her that she had died from typhus.

Raisa and Brina stay for a short time with Bayleh, her husband Mottel and their family while they hunt for a place of their own. After a tiring day with no prospects, Raisa and Brina end up at a synagogue where they are helped by a young student, Gavrel Kamensky. He lives in a tenement with his mother, father and sister, Fruma who works at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Mrs. Kamensky offers Raisa and Brina a place to stay and Raisa begins working for a woman in her dress shop. But when the work proves to be tiring and poorly paid, Gavrel takes Raisa to his friend Rachel who teaches her how to use a sewing machine. Eventually an opportunity to work at Triangle happens: Fruma knows of a young woman who is expecting a baby and leaving her job. Raisa is able to secure that position and begins working on the ninth floor of the Triangle factory on Asch.

Raisa continues to search for her sister Henda, begins learning English at the and reunites with Zusa and Luciana, with all three girls soon employed at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Raisa also finds herself falling in love with the kindly Gavrel. When disaster strikes at the Triange factory on a March Saturday, Raisa's life is forever changed in ways she never thought possible.

Discussion

Threads and Flames is a fictional account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which occurred on March 25, 2011. This disaster forever changed the way factories treated their workers and helped to create support for workers unions and workers rights. At 4:45pm at the end of a Saturday workday, workers were in the process of leaving the building and collecting their belongings when fire broke out in the scraps of material beneath a table of sewing machines.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company had the practice of locking all the doors and searching employees at closing time to make sure they did not steal from the company. All the doors in the building opened inwards which would have disastrous consequences for those trying to flee. The company also insisted that its building was fireproof and that the fire escape at the back of the building was sufficient to evacuate the building should a fire happen. Only 27 buckets of water were available to use in dousing any initial fire.

When the fire broke out on the eighth floor, it spread quickly due to the large amounts of cloth, bins of rags, hanging patterns and sewing machine oil. Trapped by the locked doors, barred windows and a fire-engulfed stairwell, many young women chose to leap from the eighth and ninth floor windows. The other choice was to burn to death. Witnesses at the scene describe the sickening sound of body after body hitting the pavement. In all 146 people either burned to death or leapt to their death.

More than anything, it was the sight of young women leaping to their deaths that motivated people to seek changes in the fire prevention laws and also in workplace safety laws. Although the owners of the factory were prosecuted, they were acquitted because they broke no existing fire laws.

Friesner's novel starts off slow, carefully building both setting, background and characters. The story opens with thirteen year old Raisa as she is recovering from typhus. There is a foreshadowing of the future catastrophe in Raisa's life in the description of Raisa's illness. "Raisa's world was fire. The blaze was everywhere. She was lost in the heart of the flames. Wherever she turned, walls of heat beat against her like hammers. The air throbbed and rang, filling her head with merciless thunder."

The story follows Raisa as she travels to New York city, taking on the responsibility of caring for a young orphaned girl and finally obtaining a job at the Triange Shirtwaist factory. Along the way she makes new friends in Zusa and Luciana, takes in an orphan named Brina, and falls in love with a young Jewish scholar.  Raisa is shown as an honest, resilient, hard-working young woman. She is also determined to locate her older sister Henda, who has gone missing after learning by letter that Raisa had died from typhus.

Friesner incorporates many details about young immigrants coming to America: the promise and expectation of a better life and the difficulties faced due to language barriers, as well as the poverty and discrimination many faced. Readers learn about the obstacles encountered without the story becoming overwhelmed by details.  Friesner also portrays how segregated American society was at this time, with each ethnic group having it's own insular community often prejudiced towards outsiders as well as the strong class distinctions that still existed at this time.

The novel also portrays the struggles and conditions these immigrants encountered in factories through various characters. For example, Raisa describes conditions in the Triangle factory, " We're packed together at these tables like canned sardines swimming in sewing machine oil, she thought. Then when it's quitting time, we turn into sheep, hereded together to wait our turn apt the exit while they search us, one by one, to make sure we havent stolen anything."  Luciana describes an event at a smaller shop where she used to work, in which a girl was injured by a broken sewing machine needle. "It was a freak accient; sewing machine needles broke all the time under the stress of so much intense use. Who had the time to check for wear and tear during the height of the weekday rush? And who wanted to ask the foreman for a new needle too quckly, especially when the cost came out of the worker's pay? So they ran the machines until something gave, when the needle splintered off and the shard went spinning."  Even the small shops cheat workers as Raisa discovers when she works for Madame doing piece work. And Zusa and Luciana speak of bosses who touch the girls.

The climax of the novel is the fire at the Triangle factory and the loss of Zusa and the believed loss of Luciana and of Raisa's fiance, Gavrel. However, Friesner offers a happy twist to her novel, that involves many reunions. 

Threads and Flames is historical fiction that incorporates a mystery as well as a touch of romance. The mystery which is mostly in the background of the story, is the disappearance of Raisa's sister Henda. The romance involves Raisa's growing affection for Gavrel Kamensky, the young Jewish scholar who rescues her and Brina from destitution. Despite the tragic setting of the novel, readers will find the conclusion satisifying and will have learned something about American society during the early 1900's.

Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner
New York: Viking Group 2010
390 pp.