The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day

The Mona Lisa Vanishes tells the story of the most remarkable art heist in the early twentieth century.

The story begins first, long ago in Florence in 1503 with the portrait of a young wife and mother, Lisa Gherardini by Leonardo da Vinci, who named the painting Mona Lisa. Five hundred years later, in Paris, France on Monday August 21, 1911 a man who has hidden all night in the Louvre would pull off the heist of the century. He had come to the vast museum on Sunday like any other visitor but when the museum was closing he didn't leave. Instead, he hid himself in closet among the easels and paint boxes. 

He knew it was possible to hide in the Louvre because a few months earlier, a French journalist who believed the Louvre's security was lacking hid himself overnight in the sarcophagus of an Egyptian king. He then published his experience.

The storage closet the thief had hidden in overnight was near the Salon Carre where the most valuable artworks like those from Titian, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci were displayed.  The man emerged from the closet wearing a white smock similar to that of the Louvre maintenance workers. The paintings in the Louvre were not locked down because it was assumed no one would dare steal them. However, they were hung in a specific way that required some knowledge as to how to remove them. The thief had this knowledge and quickly removed the painting from the Salon Carre and slipped into the stairwell. There he removed the Mona Lisa from its antique frame and glass covering. Unlike most paintings, the Mona Lisa was painted on three slabs of wood joined together and it was heavy. To hide it, the thief placed the Mona Lisa under his white smock. After struggling to get out of the stairwell's locked door, he escaped into the Paris morning, taking the Mona Lisa and the doorknob.

At first no one realized the Mona Lisa had been stolen. It was considered inconceivable that anyone would attempt this. The workmen who had walked through the Salon Carre only an hour earlier that Monday morning, now saw a blank space on the wall. But they believed the Mona Lisa couldn't be stolen so they did nothing. Even on Tuesday morning when Brigadier Maximilien Alphonse Paupardin, the guard in charge of the Salon Carre, noticed the Mona Lisa missing, he assumed not that it had been stolen, but that the Louvre photographers had it. At this time, the Louvre was photographing its collection and the photographers often removed and returned paintings without telling anyone.

Louis Beroud, a painter who enjoyed painting the copyists as they worked in the Louvre, would be the man who discovered the Mona Lisa was missing. Beroud arrived at the Louvre with the intention of painting a girl working at the Mona Lisa. He was told by Brigadier Paupardin that the painting was being photographed. However, when the painting didn't show up, Beroud became impatient and asked Paupardin to find out when the Mona Lisa would return to the Salon Carre. But when Paupardin spoke to the photographers in the Louvre studio, they were puzzled and did not know what he was talking about.

With Theophile Homolle, the director of the Louvre in Mexico, a panicked Paupardin informed the curator of Egyptian antiquities, Georges Benedite. However, Benedite believed the Mona Lisa was simply somewhere in the Louvre. A search did not find the painting and Georges Benedite was forced to call in the Paris police. Soon all of Paris knew the Mona Lisa was gone. What was the heist of the century would capture the attention of Parisians, French citizens and the world for months and remain unsolved for two years.

Discussion

The Mona Lisa Vanishes is "...a story about how a strange, small portrait became the most famous painting in history...about a shocking theft and a bizarre recovery." But as Nicholas Day aptly demonstrates, "...it is also the story of another way of looking at the world --clearly, plainly, without assumptions or expectations."  - the way the painting's creator, Leonardo da Vinci did. This is in contrast to the way the French police viewed their world, and therefore how they investigated the theft of the Mona Lisa.

After introducing the theft of the Mona Lisa, Day takes his readers back into the past, to the story of how the Mona Lisa came to be painted. It is a story that begins with Leonardo da Vinci, born at the height of the Renaissance in 1452, in Vinci. Leonardo is sent to apprentice with Andrea del Verrocchio, a Florentine painter and sculptor whom he soon surpasses in ability. His angel in the painting, The Baptism of Christ was so sublime that Verrocchio quit painting. Leonardo develops a new technique called sfumato in which the artist blends objects and people rather than outlining them in paintings. Unfortunately, Leonardo is often unable to finish works he is commissioned. He eventually would receive the commission to paint Lisa Gherardini, the wife of  Francesco Del Giocondo, a successful silk merchant and trader. His problem is that Leonardo is not just a painter but an observer of the world.

From entries in his notebooks, it is evident that he is obsessed with the world around him. His mind is on fire with questions and the quest to find answers through observation and study. This information is not necessary for his art, but this mindset means it is almost impossible to finish the commissions he receives, including the Mona Lisa. However, "...it means he sees the world without being blinded by what he thinks it is already going to be. He doesn't have assumptions about what something is or what it means. He doesn't leap to conclusions. His highest values are observations and experience..." As Day aptly demonstrates, this is in marked contrast to the way the Paris police proceed in their attempt to recover the Mona Lisa.

Interwoven with the story of Leonardo, his life and his painting, is the story of the Paris police's inability to solve the theft and recover  the Mona Lisa. Solving crimes is new to police work in the early twentieth century. Louis Lepine, head of the Paris police had begun standardizing police procedures. Helping him was Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer in the new field of forensics. Bertillon, a temperamental man, had developed a method of identifying someone using body measurements - known as anthropometry. His system, used throughout the world, was difficult to implement consistently. A newer technique of fingerprinting to identify a person was just coming into practice. Bertillon had two important leads in the Mona Lisa heist: a fingerprint lifted from the glass pane of the painting, and the knowledge that the thief likely worked in the Louvre.

However, unlike Leonardo da Vinci, Lepine and Bertillon did not have an open mind, instead working on assumptions. "It was the opposite of observation, the opposite of how Leonardo would have wanted the Mona Lisa theft investigated. Unlike Leonardo, Bertillon and Lepine didn't start with the world. They started with what they assumed the world to be." Lepine assumed that because the crime was not a bloody, violent one, it meant that the heist was the work of a "superior class of thief." Lepine was looking for either a professional gang or a consummate professional thief like Adam Worth. One theory held that a rich American had paid a professional thief to steal the Mona Lisa. In 1911, many Americans who had made their wealth during the Guilded Age were eager to showcase that new wealth and to do so they purchased the art of famous painters from Europe.  It was because they worked from assumptions and theories like this, rather than observations, that Lepine and Bertillon were unable to solve the heist.

The Mona Lisa Vanishes is not just a story about the theft of the Mona Lisa, but a biography of the the great Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci. Day also explores the world of the high Renaissance, while contrasting it with society and the art world in the early twentieth century. Readers will also learn how the Mona Lisa heist changed the public's perception of art and artists .Day's account is informative and definitely engaging, as he weaves his narrative back and forth between Leonardo's life leading to the painting of the Mona Lisa and the desperate attempts to solve the heist in the twentieth century. 

There are black and white oil on paper illustrations that will appeal to younger readers. However, inclusion of photographs, for example the Mona Lisa and the Louvre, of Pablo Picasso, Alphonse Bertillon and Vincenzo Peruggia would have added significantly to Day's telling. Other times, an image of a painting being discussed would have been very helpful. For example, Day writes about Pablo Picasso's painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and how this painting changed art, beginning a new movement in modern art. Without an image to consider, readers are left to imagine what Day is explaining, or to use Google. A map of Italy and France, showing the location of Florence and the Louvre would also have been useful.

Day does include an extensive list of sources at the back, confirming what readers will most definitely already know, that The Mona Lisa Vanishes is a well-researched book about a heist that is largely forgotten outside the art world. Highly recommended for readers of all ages.

Book Details:

The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day
New York: Random House Studio      2023
278 pp.

Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch

Ashes of Roses opens February 18, 1911 as Margaret Rose (Rose) Nolan along with her Ma, Da, sisters, twelve-year-old Maureen Rose and four-year-old Bridget, and her baby brother Joseph, arrive in New York harbour. They have just finished a two week journey, as steerage passengers from Cork, Ireland. 

As steerage passengers they have to disembark and the ferry to Ellis Island where they are to be examined by immigration officials. They all pass the physical and eye examination except Joseph who is diagnosed with trachoma, a contagious eye infection. This means that he cannot enter America and must return to Ireland. Since the Nolans do not have enough money for the entire family to return, Da makes the decision that he will return with Joseph and Ma and the girls will go on to stay with his brother Patrick as they planned. Da will work to earn the money to return and if Joseph's eyes are clear he will bring him to America. If not he will stay in Ireland. This decision deeply upsets Ma who doesn't want to abandon her baby and who feels they should all return to Ireland. 

Heartbroken Ma and the girls move into another area and after questioning by another examiner they are sent to the pier to meet Uncle Patrick. When Ma sees that Patrick is not there, she sneaks in behind a man and his family, pretending they are relatives. Without Patrick, they will be sent back to Ireland. While Ma doesn't know why Patrick isn't there, she has his address and intends to find him. 

After help from several policemen who are also from Ireland, Ma and the girls find Patrick's apartment and discover that he has a wife named Elsa. Living with Patrick and Elsa are her two daughters, Trudy and Hildegard, and Patrick and Elsa's son, Frederich. They learn that Patrick did not know they were coming as he never received Da's letter. While Patrick is welcoming and is happy to have them stay with his family, Elsa and her daughters are not. Patrick has done well for himself, having come to America with twenty dollars, worked on the docks before getting into politics and now a councilman for the Seventeenth Ward. His home has five rooms: a parlor, diningroom, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom with hot running water and an indoor toilet. After a strange dinner of saurekraut and black rye bread, and a bath, Rose and her family settle in. 

On Sunday Ma is shocked to discover that Patrick and his family do not attend Catholic Mass, but instead the Lutheran church. Furious, she leaves the apartment and takes the girls to Mass. As the week goes on, it becomes more and more difficult for Rose, Ma and Maureen to live at Patrick's home. They are clearly resented by Elsa and her daughters. Rose overhears Elsa attempting to convince Patrick to make them leave. This leads Rose to decide to try to find work. She manages to find piece work with a man named Mr. Moscovitz who allows Rose to take home the pieces to make paper flower stems. However this leads to a violent showdown between Elsa and her daughters and Ma and Maureen. 

As a result Patrick tells Ma they must stay elsewhere and offers to pay for a place until his brother Michael returns to New York. But Ma decides she has had enough and will return to Limerick. Patrick purchases tickets in second class for the family and on Saturday morning, two weeks after arriving they leave. However, when they are at the pier, Rose refuses to leave America. She believes there are more opportunities for her in America than back in Limerick where she most likely get married. When Ma agrees to Rose staying, Maureen also wants to stay. Ma eventually agrees, gives Rose and Maureen their tickets to cash back in and boards the boat with Bridget. 

In New York City Rose and Maureen manage to find lodging with a man, Mr. Garoff and his daughter Gussela who is a seamstress at a shirtwaist factory on Washington Street. Gussie is also a prominent union organizer and is involved with the Waistmakers Local 25. Over the weekend Rose and Maureen struggle to finish the paper flower stems for Mr. Muscovitz. When Rose takes them back to Mr. Muscovitz he begins sorting through them but when she begs him to pay her, he tells her to come back later that night. This turns out to be a trick where he attempts to assault Rose, but she manages to escape. Rose tells Gussie what happened and she informs Rose that they will return in the morning to retrieve her coat and demand payment for the work she completed. Gussie comes up with an alternate plan for Rose: she will get a sewing machine for Rose to practice on and when she learns how to use it, Gussie will speak with the foreman at the shirtwaist factory. 

Within a week Rose learns how to run the sewing machine and Gussie takes her to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where she is given a job. Rose takes her first-ever ride in an elevator and soon becomes comfortable working in the factory. She makes friends with two girls who work opposite her,  Rose Klein, and Rose Bellini. As she begins to learn the job at the factory, Rose also forms a strong bond with the two girls. But just as their life is seeming to become settled, tragedy strikes.

At the end of the workday on a Saturday, fire breaks out on the floor below.  Rose finds herself trapped on the ninth floor along with Gussie and her friends Rose Klein and Rose Bellini. With the doors locked and the lone elevator capable of only holding a small number of people, there are few choices to escape the inferno. Rose, her two friends and Gussie each make decisions that determine whether they will live or die.

Discussion

1911 markes the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a tragedy that forever changed the face of factory work in the United States and other countries.  Ashes of Roses is a historical fiction novel that portrays the tragedy from the perspective of a young Irish immigrant.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred on Saturday March 25, 1911 in the garment factory that was located on the eighth throught tenth floors of the Asch building in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood. The factory, which was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, employed around five hundred immigrant women and girls, some as young as fifteen,  in the making of shirtwaists, a fashionable women's blouse worn at the turn of the last century. Immigrant women and some men were hired because they would work for lower wages and were less likely to unionize. At this time, there were few protections for workers, and up to one hundred workers died every day on the job in 1911. At the Triangle Shirtwaist factory women had to leave the building to use the washroom as there were no facilities on site. Management began locking the exit doors to prevent the resulting work stoppage. They claimed it was to prevent theft. Shirtwaist workers worked nonstop, seven days a week for a mere six dollars a week.

The fire started near the end of the workday on Saturday in a scrap bin on the eighth floor, possibly from a discarded match or cigarette. The wooden scrap bin contained several months worth of material scraps from the cutters table above it. There was no fire alarm in the building and the factory floors with its abundance of flammable material was quickly engulfed in flames. The floors had doors, two freight elevators, two stairways, and a fire escape.  However, the door to the Washington Place stairway was locked to prevent thefts, the Greene Street stairway quickly became engulfed in the raging flames, and the two freight elevators managed to save some but were soon inoperable due to the heat.  To escape the raging fire some employees crammed onto the rickety fire escape which collapsed sending people to their deaths. The firefighter's ladders only reached to the seventh floor and so to escape, some began jumping from the windows to escape the smoke and flames. The fire was over in a half hour. Of the five hundred employees, one hundred forty-six were dead, most of them young women.  The fire would become a turning point in the fight for workers rights, leading to many changes.

Historical fiction succeeds if the author is able to portray the period accurately through the setting and the characters. Author Mary Jane Auch suceeds in Ashes of Roses with her incorporation of historical detail and her crafting of believable characters. The author became interested in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire after watching the PBS documentary, New York. Auch writes in her Author's Note that she initially believed the workers in the factory were mainly Irish but soon discovered that was not the case. Although most of the workers in the factory were Russian, Polish, and Italian, she did find the name of an Irish woman and decided to continue with the main character as a young Irish immigrant. 

Auch offers readers an interesting portrayal of life in early twentieth century New York City: a bustling metropolis with immigrants like Ros" e's Uncle Patrick who arrived with little and through hard work have made a comfortable life for themselves, to those newly arrived struggling in sweatshops and factories to earn enough to live. Through the character of Gussie Garoff, young readers are introduced to the efforts of workers to obtain better pay and safer working conditions. Gussie explains to Rose and her sister how two years before, hundreds of girls in New York, Rochester and Philadephia went on strike to fight for their rights, how she was beaten and thrown into jail by the police and how she was not allowed to see a doctor for her broken arm. Gussie is referring to the general strike of 1909. From the AFL-CIO website the strike is described as follows: "The next morning, throughout New York's garment district, more than 15,000 shirtwaist makers walked out. They demanded a 20 percent pay raise, a 52-hour work week and extra pay for overtime."  The following day "...more than 20,000 workers from 500 factories had walked out. " While smaller factories had agreed to the demands, the owners of the Triangle factory along with those of the twenty largest factories formed an association to resist in every way possible, the workers' demands. Strkers were arrested by the police and jailed and/or fined by the courts. The strike was finally resolved in 1910.

The tragedy at the Triangle factory is foreshadowed in several ways in the novel. While they are staying at their Uncle Patrick's apartment, Rose and Maureen spend some time talking outside on the fire escape. Rose explains to her younger sister that it is used if the inside stairs are on fire. When Maureen notes that the stairs do not go all the way to the ground, Rose surmises that a person must jump. Maureen states she could never jump but Rose counters, "Ye'd be amazed how much courage you'd have with flames lickin' at yer arse..."  In fact this is exactly what Rose experiences during the Triange factory fire but her fear of jumping and seeing that the firemen cannot save those who do, leads her to find another way to escape. 

When Rose Nolan begins her first day at work in the Triangle factory, Gussie explains to her some of the policies in the factory that will ultimately determine who survives and who dies in the fire. Rose notes that the elevators take only a few people at a time and move slowly and learns that at closing the workers are made to walk down the stairs. Another girl warns Rose not be late because "They lock the doors at eight sharp and don't open them again until noon..."  Rose is shocked to see how crowded the ninth floor is: "The entire room was filled with long tables placed close together, with a double row of sewin' machines stretchin' from end to end of each one... The tables were so close to each other, it was difficult to squeeze past when two girls were seated back to back."   The crowded conditions mean there is no clear and easy path out to the doors which are locked during the day to prevent theft and the elevator which was is never in service at the end of each shift. 

Auch does an excellent job portraying life for the young shirtwaist factory workers who dress stylishly and have fun going to the nickelodeon. The novel also offers a realistic description of the fire that conveys both the terror of the victims and the pain and loss of the families of the workers who died in the fire. An interesting aspect to the novel is Rose's description of the New York City's wealthy and elite coming to view the aftermath of the tragedy and the bodies. In Washington Square, Rose, Maureen and Jacob watch as a procession of stage buses bring people in to view the scene. "Their open tops were filled with young couples laughin' and chattin' as they went to view the tragedy. The women were dressed to the nines, with bright feathered and flowered hats. They were doin' this as a lark--just a little entertainment for a Sunday mornin'..." This deeply angers Rose who decides to confront several people. However, historians note that both wealthy and immigrant poor were motivated by the horror to work together, although their goals were somewhat different. 

In sixteen-year-old Rose Nolan, an Irish Catholic immigrant, Auch has crafted and determined, intelligent and quick thinking heroine. Although Rose loses her best friends and Gussie in the fire, she remains determined to stay in America, but this time to work in a union shop that will look after her rights. It is clear the tragedy has changed her and her sister Maureen forever.

The title, Ashes of Roses has several meanings. The colour of the dress Rose wears to work on the day of the tragedy is called "ashes of roses" a sort of rose gray taffeta. During her escape from the Triangle building, she tears her dress and that piece of fabric shows up in the items used to identify the dead. Rose who goes to look for her sister and friends among the dead, is horrified to see a scrap of her dress. Secondly, one of the most common names of the young women who died in the tragedy was Rose. So the fire indeed contained the ashes of (many) Roses, among others.

Told in the voice of 16 year old Rose Nolan, Ashes of Roses is an engaging account of a tragedy that forever changed America. It will appeal to teens who love historical fiction.

Book Details:
Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch.
New York: Laurel Leaf              2004
256 pp.

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.