A Memory of Violets

Title: A Memory of Violets

Author: Hazel Gaynor

Genre: Historical Fiction

Time: 5 hours

This book threw me for a loop..  took me a day to recover from it, which is surprising coz I had a slow start with it.  If I wasn’t reading it to keep me occupied while processing my driver’s license, I might not have moved past chapter 2 and instead found another book to read.  But it picks up around chapter 3.

The book is very well written.  It really transports you to that particular place and time.  Not only that, you live through the emotions the characters are also going through.  Like how attached Florrie is to Rosie.  To be honest, I can’t relate to this deep sisterly bond coz I grew up with brothers but the way it was written, I could really feel the Florrie’s anguish and longing when she lost her sister.  My heart broke along with hers.  I wished it had a happier ending, but that’s life.  I wished Marguerite also found Florrie and adopted her as well or Rosie was sent back and they both go to Mr. Shaw.  Or perhaps, they’d recognized each other when Rosie visited Clacton.  Or at least met before Florrie died.  There were so many chances.  So many what ifs.  It makes you wonder about life and how many “almost” moments like those that you had without ever knowing about it.

And yes, there were a lot of coincidences, or as the book calls it—fate and destiny.  Personally, I’m not a fan of too many coincidences in a story.  Like how Tilly happened to sit beside Marguerite on the train ride (btw, I totally guessed that she was somehow connected to Florrie and Rosie).  Or Tilly’s connection with Florrie (and Queenie). And also how Mr. Shaw and Marguerite crossed paths.  But because the book was so well-written, these coincidences didn’t seem forced at all.

The story reminded me of the TV Series, Who Do You Think You Are.  There was this episode where Rosie O’Donnel traced back her family to Ireland.  How there was some sort of famine or hard times in Ireland so a lot of Irish went to America to find a better life only ending up in tenement slums which seemed almost no better off than where they came from.  I never thought that some of them might migrate to England.  And it made me wonder how many of those real flower sellers and matchstick girls survived long enough to have families of their own and if so, where are their descendants are now?  Did some of them become rich or famous?  Like J. K. Rowling who traced back an ancestor and found out that she was a chambermaid, if I’m not mistaken.  But it saddened me to think that a big number of those girls most probably did not survive to adulthood.  The book casually mentioned this 12-year old girl Florrie knew who was found floating at the bottom of the river.  Nobody knew what happened and nobody cared to find out.  Who knows how many countless “real” girls who met the same fate.  Losing parents to diseases like cholera or syphilis, young, dirt-poor orphans were vulnerable to serial killers and pedo-bears at that time.  And if you think about Florrie and Rosie had a grandma (who painstakingly made them those delicate hankies), who might still be in Ireland with, perhaps, a village of aunts, uncles and cousins and they’d never know, about Florrie & Rosie’s plight because it was a time before cellphones and skype.  They were just nameless street urchins that nobody cared about and if they disappeared or died, no one would notice or care.  And because this book was inspired by actual historical events, it made me sad to think of those kids and babies from a hundred years ago who experienced this life.  And that is why it took me a day to recover from this book.