Triangle

(By Katharine Weber)

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Author	Katharine Weber

“Book Descriptions: March 25th, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire. Triangle author Katharine Weber appears in the new HBO documentary about the fire, discussing her grandmother's experiences working at the Triangle factory and in the famous garment workers strike in 1909, the Uprising of the 20,000. "As the last living survivor of the notorious 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Esther Gottesfeld has told her story countless times. Even so, her death at the age of 106 leaves unanswered many questions about what happened that fateful day - the day she lost her sister and her fiance, the day her life changed forever. How did she manage to survive the fire? Almost 150 workers died in the sweatshop inferno - why wasn't she one of them? Are the discrepancies in her various accounts just ordinary human fallacy, or is there a hidden story in Esther's recollections of the tragedy?" Esther's granddaughter, Rebecca, and George, her partner, a prizewinning composer, seek to unravel the facts of the matter, while at the same time Ruth Zion, a zealous Triangle fire historian, bores in on them with her own mole-like agenda. As George composes his ingenious music - inspired by patterns found in nature, from Sierpinski triangles to human DNA to the Triangle fire itself - the music provides the counterpoint to Rebecca's race against Ruth Zion's claim on her grandmother's story. Meanwhile, Esther's story becomes like music itself - a theme and variation, a rondo whose motif returns each time a little more elaborated and explored, understanding deepening with each repetition. As in a symphony, the true story of what happened at the Triangle factory is declared in the first notes - yet it is fully revealed only when we've heard it all the way through to its find chords.”