I ordered my book from Amazon. I saved like $5 or something, but ended up sacrificing valuable time waiting for the The Triangle to find its way to my apartment. It arrived the same day Zach did, so needless to say I didn't read the book until after he left. I take full responsibility for bad time management.
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The critics comments rave of the amazing story of the "long-forgotten tale", and I did enjoy learning the history behind the Triangle factory. To give you a better idea of what the book is about I have taken the liberty to type out the summary on the back of the book:
'In one of the most honored books of the year, David Von Drehle transports us to a beautiful spring day in March 1911 when 146 workers - most of them young immigrant women - lost their lives. Employees had just begun preparing to leave the Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village when a fire broke out and within minutes consumed the building's upper three stories. It was the worst disaster in New York City until 9/11.'
No where in the summary does the story warn you of the seemingly endless back stories of characters in the book that don't add anything to the story other than worthless pages. While some might find it interesting to read the back stories of immigrant workers who died as well as how the corrupt lawyer came to be they have no place in a novel. I understand this book was based off history, but there were many parts of the book that were pointless to the actual story.
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| The Triangle factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building. Back then fire crews could only successfully fight a fires from the 6th floor and below. |
I will say that I was impressed by the descriptions he used when telling the story, but he used too many pointless descriptions. He would also proceed to repeat himself often with information that wasn't vital to the storyline.
I also would like to take this time out point out another flaw to the summary on the back cover. While the summary and title of the book give the reader the impression the story will be mainly about a fire it's not. In fact, the first one-hundred or so pages has nothing to do with flames. It provides the history of the industry, which I'll admit is important only 24 pages were actually devoted to the fire itself. The other 224 pages consisted of the history before the fire and the worker strikes leading up to it as well as the hearings, fallout, and reform that took place after that. Oh and let's not forget about 112 of those pages include useless backstories that should be reserved for a more appropriate book where the stories will have more meaning, instead of a novel.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book for anyone to read, however I do believe that everyone should take the time and research (or at least google) the Triangle fire. I found the history behind it quite interesting. Perhaps I might even write a little summary of my own after some sleep and time to relax.
After scanning the opening of the book for some information just now I would like to tell every DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! The first page opens with a story that has no direct relevance to the story itself. The author already begins to plague the book with five characters who are not only unessential to the story line, but cloud the reader with details that confuse the reader from the start.
I agree with the Bob Woodward. The book does cover "an amazing, long-forgotten tale," and that this is a part of history that needs to be told. But that doesn't mean David Von Drehle should be the one telling it.
Love, bear
P.S. When I say that the back stories are not important/relevant I mean that they are not important/relevant to the novel. The victims of the fire suffered a terrible fate, and each of them is played an important role in changing laws to create safer work enviornments. There stories are very important for the history aspect of the Triangle fire; they just don't hold any significant merit to the novel itself.
