Triangle: A Novel - Kindle edition by Weber, Katharine. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance Praise for Triangle:

"Katharine Weber's Triangle is a marvel of ingenuity, bridging history and imagination, astonishing musical inventiveness and genuine social tragedy. It is a wide-awake novel as powerful as it is persuasive, probing and capturing human verities."--Cynthia Ozick

"Katharine Weber has always been a brilliant and ingenious formalist; at last she has found a subject deep and durable enough to bear the jeweled precision of her gaze. Here one of our most irresistible writers meets one of the most immovable events of our history. Triangle is an incandescent novel."--Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Stone That the Builder Refused

"Slippery as an unreliable witness, Triangle maps the gap between memory and history. Out of the most unlikely materials, Katharine Weber has fashioned a generational mystery that plays as both academic farce and real-life tragedy."--Stewart O'Nan, author of The Good Wife

"Triangle is a finely written contemplation of love, memory, terror, music and DNA. Precise and clear-eyed, the novel examines the power of recollection in surviving overwhelming tragedy with both pathos and humanity."--Barbara Chase-Riboud, author of Hottentot Venus

"Blending music and memory together in arresting arrangement, 'Triangle' is a unique and poignant tale of the varieties of love and loss."--Rebecca Goldstein, author of Mazel and The Mind-Body Problem

Praise for The Little Women:

"A talented and experienced novelist." --Richard Eder, The New York Times

"Lively, interesting and funny. . .Weber's prose is, as ever, unflaggingly enjoyable." --Emily Barton, The New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Music Lesson:
"Weber's skill is such that her puzzle engages the reader's attention throughout." --The New Yorker

"Aff...

About the Author

Katharine Weber is the author of the novels The Little Women (FSG, 2003), The Music Lesson, and Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. Her paternal grandmother finished buttonholes for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1909.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from Triangle by Katharine Weber. Copyright © 2006 by Katharine Weber. Published in June 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

ONE

This is what happened. I was working at my machine, with only a few minutes left before the end of the day, I remember so clearly I can still see it, that I had only two right sleeves remaining in my pile—my sister Pauline, she did the left sleeves and I did the right sleeves and between us we could finish sometimes as many as twenty-four shirtwaists in an hour, three hundred shirtwaists on a good day, if the machines didn’t break down and if the thread didn’t break too often, and if nobody put a needle through her finger, which happened all the time and the biggest problem then was you didn’t want to bleed on the goods but you didn’t want to stop work so you took a piece of scrap and you wrapped your finger tight and you kept working—my sister was a little faster than I was and sometimes her finished pile would be high because she did her sleeve first and then I would take from her pile to do the right sleeve but I have to say my seams were the ones always perfectly straight.

And then when I was done, the waist would be finished except for sewing on the buttons and trimming the loose threads, and who did that was the little girls over in the nursery, that’s what we called that corner, the nursery, some of those girls were only ten or eleven years old already working and working, poor things, but what other life did they know? Those little girls would sew on the buttons and cut all the loose threads and then the waist would be ready for pressing.

It was payday that day, it was a Saturday, and the pay envelopes had just been handed out, and before that for a few minutes there was a break and my friend Ida Brodsky, she died, she was a wonderful friend to me, she made a cake for a surprise because of my engagement to Sam, because we had just said a few days before we would get married, we didn’t even get a ring yet, and people were happy for us, all the girls working together, it was so cheerful sometimes even with the hard work. I had my pay envelope and my sister’s also, to keep for her, we each got maybe six or eight dollars or sometimes less, except in a good week, and once we each made twelve dollars for a week’s work but that was an exception, but you could live on that money we made and send some home, too. We thought we were doing well, we were happy enough with what we had, even though the unions told us to get more and told us we shouldn’t be so happy, and they were right, but we were never hungry, we were so young and healthy and strong, and it felt like a chance to get ahead, so we didn’t mind the long days and the terrible loud noise of the machines and the smell of the oil everywhere.

That oil, they had to use it, to keep the machines going, but they could have opened those dirty windows for even a breath of fresh air, it wouldn’t have made us work slower and who knows it might have made us work better, but all the windows were always kept closed tight—and I remember I just took a moment from my machine to tuck the pay packets for both of us into my stocking to be safe like always, I took them both from our boss, Mr. Jacobs, so my sister could keep working for every minute left—and the next day would have been our one day off in the week, so we were looking forward to that—and then there was a big noise behind me, while I was still bending down, like nothing I had ever heard, and I thought, What could that be?

So loud, like an explosion and something breaking all at once! So I turned around, and my sister next to me, she turned around too, and what did we see? Flames! They were just outside the window on the Greene Street side, they were right there behind me. The flames were coming up from the eighth floor but we didn’t know everybody on the eighth floor was already in a commotion and escaping because that’s where the fire started, and a lot of those girls got out before that big noise which was the windows breaking from the fire, mostly they got out from the eighth floor, but we were on the ninth floor, that’s where I worked already for a year with my sister, we learned English so fast and we had these good jobs and our life in America was a big adventure for us. We thought it was fortunate to work on the ninth floor where the bosses gave a little more pay and the really skilled girls, the fastest workers, they had their machines. Maybe that was never true and it was the same on the eighth floor but this is what we thought. Nobody on our floor knew what was happening right underneath us until those windows blew out. More people could have got out if we knew, but nobody told us. They knew on the tenth floor and they all got out, but one. A lot of people below us and everyone above us got out. Only on the ninth floor it was unlucky to be, because nobody told us.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004N625IM
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 22, 2011
Edition ‏ : ‎ First
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3.0 MB
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1429994750
Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,704 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,960 in U.S. Historical Fiction
- #5,593 in Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
- #71,859 in American Literature (Books)
Customer Reviews:
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Katharine Weber

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Katharine Weber's six novels and memoir, all highly-praised, some, award-winning, have made her a book club favorite.

Her newest novel and seventh book, STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY (Paul Dry Books), had had rave reviews and praise:

"Stark and compelling . . . Rigorously unsentimental yet suffused with emotion: possibly the best work yet from an always stimulating writer."―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Katharine Weber’s Still Life With Monkey is a beautifully wrought paean of praise for the ordinary pleasures taken for granted by the able-bodied. In precise and often luminous prose, with intelligence and tenderness, Weber’s latest novel examines the question of what makes a life worth living."―Washington Post

"[A] deeply but delicately penetrating novel."―New York Times Book Review

"Weber’s unsentimental and poignant examination of what does and does not make life worth living is a heartbreaking triumph."―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Weber's sixth novel is a nuanced investigation of what is left when all of the ways one identifies oneself are wiped out in an instant . . . Beautiful, emotionally resonant storytelling."―Booklist

"A brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart."―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

Katharine's previous novel, True Confections, the story of a chocolate candy factory in crisis, was published in 2010. Critics raved: "A great American tale" (New York Times Book Review), "Marvelous, a vividly imagined story about love, obsession and betrayal" (Boston Globe), "Katharine Weber is one of the wittiest, most stimulating novelists at work today...wonderful fun and endlessly provocative" (Chicago Tribune),"Succulently inventive" (Washington Post),"Her most delectable novel yet" (L.A. Times).

Her sixth book, a memoir called The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities, published in 2011, won raves from the critics, from Ben Brantley in the New York Times ("Ms. Weber is able to arrange words musically, so that they capture the elusive, unfinished melodies that haunt our memories of childhood") to the Dallas Morning News ("gracefully written, poignant and droll"), the NY Daily News ("Old Scandals, what fun...the core of her tale is that of elegant sin and betrayal"), and the Boston Globe (a masterful memoir of the private world of a very public family"), among others.

Katharine was the Richard L. Thomas Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College for seven years. She has taught creative writing at Yale University (for eight years), and was an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the graduate writing program in the School of the Arts at Columbia University for six years. She has taught at various international writing workshops, from the Paris Writers Workshop several summers in a row to the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference and the West Cork Literary Festival in Ireland.

All of Katharine's books have been republished in paperback, some of them in more than one edition, and all are available as e-books. Take note, book groups! In these pandemic times, Zoom visits to book groups can be arranged.

Customer reviews

89 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book's story compelling, with one review noting how news accounts are deftly woven into the characters' stories. Moreover, the writing style receives positive feedback for being brilliantly written, and customers appreciate the historical detail, with one review highlighting the historical details of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. However, the character development receives mixed reactions from customers.

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14 customers mention story, 13 positive, 1 negative

Customers enjoy the compelling story of the book, which features interlinked narratives. One customer notes how news accounts are deftly woven into the characters' stories, while another describes it as a moving investigation of a tragic historical event.

The book provided facts in the form of a compelling story that made you understand and feel for the charactersRead more

...Given the precise facts of this horrific event, TRIANGLE is a beautiful story which captures the essence of that terrible day....Read more

Well written, intriguing story. The conclusion will surprise you!Read more

...I will keep it simple and say that I found the story interesting, the characters entertaining and the history fascinating....Read more

10 customers mention content, 9 positive, 1 negative

Customers find the book extraordinary and brilliant, with one mentioning it was their favorite book club selection of the year.

Katharine Weber's Triangle is a work of stunning imagination and compassion, a tense, funny, and moving investigation of a tragic historical event...Read more

Fascinating and original , despite major character flaw.Read more

...The author is very imaginative and I enjoyed reading this book.Read more

This is an extraordinary book, a unique book, and I’ll have to read it again to catch everything....Read more

10 customers mention historical detail, 10 positive, 0 negative

Customers appreciate the historical detail in the book, with one review specifically highlighting its accurate portrayal of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, while another notes how it weaves historical facts into the narrative.

...with death, the book pelts through a couple's contemporary life with insight, compassion and not a little humor....Read more

...the story interesting, the characters entertaining and the history fascinating....Read more

...by Katharine Weber to be densely written and complex, weaving historical fact and contemporary fiction together brilliantly....Read more

Creating a fascinating counterpoint between the infamous tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the world of genetic studies and music,...Read more

6 customers mention writing style, 5 positive, 1 negative

Customers praise the writing style of the book, describing it as brilliant, with one customer noting it is written in stream of consciousness.

...It is brilliant and beautifully written, literate and musical at the same time....Read more

...While this book is lyrically written, it has a number of discordant notes....Read more

Well written, intriguing story. The conclusion will surprise you!Read more

I found Triangle by Katharine Weber to be densely written and complex, weaving historical fact and contemporary fiction together brilliantly....Read more

6 customers mention character development, 4 positive, 2 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the character development in the book, with some finding them vividly real while others express disappointment.

...the form of a compelling story that made you understand and feel for the charactersRead more

...Also, I was a bit disappointed in the character development. I found George and Rebecca's relationship to be strange and unfeeling....Read more

...it simple and say that I found the story interesting, the characters entertaining and the history fascinating....Read more

...to Ms. Weber for a most ingeniously woven plot and characters that are vividly real.Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

Bonnie Brody
Brilliantly Written and Conceived
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2012
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Usually I know right where I'm going when I write a review but this book has me a bit stymied because of its thematic content. It is brilliant and beautifully written, literate and musical at the same time. It tackles great themes and does it subtly yet with a great strength. It is one of the finest books I've ever read.
The story is about the Triangle Factory fire which was, prior to 9/11, the worst tragedy that ever befell New York. One hundred forty-six men, women and children were killed in a fire that occurred in a sweat shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. This fire helped spur unions to grow and protect workers. Had there been exits available when the fire occurred, almost all of the deaths could have been prevented. As the story opens, Esther Gottesfeld is 106 years old, the oldest survivor of the 1911 tragedy. It is shortly after 9/11 and the two events are synchronous in the story-telling. Esther is being interviewed by an arrogant feminist scholar, Ruth Zion, who is trying to find out information about the fire and pry secrets out of Esther. Esther is too wise and cagey for Ruth Zion to get very far.
The story is also about Esther's granddaughter, Rebecca, who lives with George Botkin, the most famous composer of contemporary U.S. music. He writes music about DNA strands, chemistry, echinacea, and Huntington's Disease (which he may have inherited). His music is loved by a wide audience.
The story weaves back and forth in time and between characters. The strongest parts of the book are those about Esther while the most original parts of the book are about George and Rebecca. There are secrets to be found out and secrets to be kept. One fascinating theme in the book is the connections between the Triangle Fire, 9/11, and music - another triangle. We find out that Rebecca and George share similar DNA strands. For two people very much in love, this seems serendipitous but also sweet.
The ending of this book is dreamlike and written in stream of consciousness. I could not come up for air as its beauty swept me with it like a tide. The last 40 pages are as beautiful as anything I've ever read. I highly recommend this book.
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Loves to Read
Above average book
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2006
Format: Hardcover
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I enjoyed the historical details of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Weber does an excellent job describing the fire and the chaos both physically and emotionally of the trapped workers. The storyline in general has great potential but falls short and there were some parts of the book that bothered me. First, the details of George's music writing became tedious. I appreciated the knowledge of how he composes music but often times the book would go into great detail and become quite tedious. Also, I was a bit disappointed in the character development. I found George and Rebecca's relationship to be strange and unfeeling. I just found the characters in this book very unusual -- I couldn't relate to any of them and if I met them, I probably wouldn't want to be friends with them. I think I would only recommend this book to someone who truly loves the art of music composition because that is what is best detailed in this book.
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6 people found this helpful
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Roni Jordan
Fascinating and original , despite major character flaw.
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2006
Format: Hardcover
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Creating a fascinating counterpoint between the infamous tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the world of genetic studies and music, Katharine Weber had me enthralled from the words "This is what happened." Even when she departs from 106-year-old Esther's recollections of the fire to discuss the evolution of George's musical genius, she does so easily and with the ability to hold this reader in her grip. The subject matter is never less than intriguing, often mesmerizing. George, Rebecca, and Esther feel like true, living people I would want to know. Unfortunately, in the character of Ruth Zion, the feminist herstorian, Weber has crafted someone so abrasive, so annoying and utterly insensitive that she is more a caricature than a believable character. This was a huge letdown in comparison to the more humanly drawn central figures. Nevertheless, this is one of the better reads I've enjoyed this summer. The ending, though not the total surprise some have suggested, is heartbreakingly written, with just a touch of ambiguity to leave me a bit puzzled about the other triangle, the love triangle of Esther, Jacob and Pauline.
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19 people found this helpful
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D B.
many triangles
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2025
Format: Kindle
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This is an extraordinary book, a unique book, and I’ll have to read it again to catch everything. There seem to be triangles within triangles - the Sierpinski triangles - and the book is about so much and so full. There are extremely long sentences in this book, and then there are short ones and more usual ones. There are characters one loves and others that are deliberately annoying. I'll have to reread this wonderful book about people whose lives are caught up in the great Triangle tragedy.
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One person found this helpful
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C
Seperate stories intertwined
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2019
Format: Kindle
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I liked the testimony for the Triangle Fire.
I disliked all of the George Botkin blubbering I didn't want to read about him. They should have named it the life story of George Botkin and a little on the Triangle Fire.
I also didn't like how mean Rebecca was to Ruth a historian trying to learn the truth.
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Sean
Disappointing treatment of a promising subject!
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2020
Format: Hardcover
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For September my book club read Triangle by Katherine Weber. The opening reminded me of Alias Grace- well the opening and closing were about the best parts (both survivor Esther remembering the fire with slight differences). The 'twist' (if it can be called that) was evident to all of us after the first 1/3th of the book even if it eluded the characters. There are a lot of questions posed by Weber, like how the survivor Esther's son's death years later could be connected to the fire, how another survivors subsequent death in a home fire could be related too, and whether or not the EXTENSIVE sections of the book covering the musical career about Esther's granddaughter Rebecca's boyfriend George serve ANY purpose, are not really answered. There is also a historian who is more a cartoon of stereotypes of feminism than a real character who is very insulting to Rebecca perhaps soley for the purpose of saying 'look how obnoxious these feminist scholars are!' but who's valid and thought provoking interests in how the gender inequalities in the workplace could have affected the morbidity of the tragedy are ridiculed. The modern day action takes place around 9-11 and while parallels between the two events are obvious, Weber never really does anything with it (she seems to be saying, aren't I clever to juxtapose these two tragedies? See, I noticed they are similar!) Wikipedia tells me there is other Triangle fiction, however, so I may seek some of that out. Novel the The East River, by Polish American Author Sholem Asch, covers the fire and was a NYT #1 bestseller back in 1946. Stephen King wrote a short story about one of the factory owners in purgatory, and there are a small legion of young adult novels with (realistically) teenage Triangle survivors as the protagonists... each one probably more compelling than Weber's NYT honorable mention by far.
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2 people found this helpful
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Daniel Garrick
Fascinating and varied
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2007
Format: Paperback
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I read this book when it first came out and it is my favorite of Weber's books. I will keep it simple and say that I found the story interesting, the characters entertaining and the history fascinating. I have a weakness for books that jump in time and space and allow you to look for traits and patterns between people in these different times and locations. Triangle does just that. Enjoy!
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3 people found this helpful
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Jeannette Hartman
Muddled Story Falls Short
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2010
Format: Paperback
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On March 25, 2011, the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire will be observed. It was the 9/11 of its time and ignited reforms in working conditions and union representation. While this book is lyrically written, it has a number of discordant notes. At times it reads almost like two small books pasted together: one dealing with fire survivor Esther Gottesfeld's experiences and the other of her granddaughter Rebecca and her future husband composer George Botkin. What left me cold was the portrayal of a researcher, Ruth Zion, as a repelling, cartoonish, self-absorbed woman. As she attempts to find out whether there were children in the building on the day of the fire, Rebecca and George fight her at every step. The story creates tension between an individual's right to privacy and the value of full revelation of the facts about a major tragedy. Weber's plot suggests she believes that some facts are better hidden than revealed.
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3 people found this helpful
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Katharine Weber

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Top reviews from the United States

Brilliantly Written and Conceived

Above average book

Fascinating and original , despite major character flaw.

many triangles

Seperate stories intertwined

Disappointing treatment of a promising subject!

Fascinating and varied

Muddled Story Falls Short

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