What Kate Quinn and Janie Chang have accomplished in their new historical fiction, “The Phoenix Crown,” is phenomenal. They have combined fictional female characters and real people and real events to create a gripping story that revolves around the Great Earthquake of San Francisco in 1906. In fact, the first part of the story, Act 1, provides dates, days, hours, and minutes as chapter headings until the earthquake hits. The first chapter is set on April 4, 1906, thirteen days, fourteen hours, fifty-two minutes before the San Francisco earthquake, as Gemma Garland, an opera singer, arrives in San Francisco with her bird, Toscanini.
And while Gemma Garland might be a fictional character, the Prologue introduces us to one important character who is an historical figure, Alice Eastwood, an esteemed botanist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The other three women who make up the quartet of main characters in this novel are fictional characters who are based loosely on real women of that era: artists, singers, those who were embroidery artists. Gemma arrives in California to sing with the Metropolitan Opera traveling company in Carmen.
Because Gemma is one of the most important figures in the story, there is a lot about music and operas and singing, and it’s fascinating. All four of the women are powerful, each in her own way, even though several of them have impediments which hinder their goal of being successful in their respective careers. Gemma suffers from terrible migraine headaches, and those of us who have experienced the horror of a migraine will admire the detailed description of the malady and how debilitating it can be. Suling, born in the US of Chinese immigrant parents, is extremely skilled at embroidery. However, after the death of her parents, their laundry business has been destroyed by her profligate uncle, who now wishes to sell her into marriage as the third wife of the local Chinese healer. Suling is desperate to escape that fate. Through her eyes we see how the Chinese were segregated in Chinatown and the blatant discrimination they suffered. Reggie, a talented artist and long-time friend of Gemma’s, had offered to let Gemma stay with her in San Francisco, but when Gemma arrived, Reggie had disappeared.
What brings the women together is a wealthy man who is a patron of the arts — Henry Thornton, a man with a mysterious past. He is an important part of San Francisco society because of his wealth, but we sense something rapacious in his manner when he offers Gemma important roles as he begins to control her life. But as powerful and calculating as Thornton is, when he threatens the safety of the women, he is not prepared for what he unleashes.
In this compelling and extremely touching novel, the two authors have created characters whom we will remember long after we have turned the last page. They are memorable for their strengths as well as their frailties, and each one represents all the unsung, forgotten, and belittled women of that era, or any era when power and strength were gifted only to white men. And the white men who rose to unimaginable heights of wealth and power often gained such riches through unsavory means. Thornton represents those men, although as we ultimately find out, he is perhaps even more unsavory than many.
The two authors also did extensive research into San Francisco and the earthquake that leveled the city. Fans of historical fiction will delight in the incredibly detailed descriptions of San Francisco, from Nob Hill to Chinatown, before, during, and after the earthquake. We feel as if we, alongside the four women, are experiencing the jolting tremors of the quake and then smelling the smoke when fire engulfed the city as an aftermath, burning it down. But as well as experiencing the horrors of the quake, we also revel in the joyful sisterhood of the quartet as they join forces to obtain something women all too often are denied — justice.
This novel is beautifully written, and book clubs would have a plethora of topics to discuss if they choose to read and analyze it. The themes range from the history of San Francisco itself to women’s place in society at the turn of the last century. Add in the increased difficulty of being a woman of Chinese descent or a woman interested in a man’s field, like botany, and how little has changed for women who suffer from a debilitating medical problem, and the discussion can compare present-day society to that of 100 years ago. How much has changed? Why are doctors so reluctant to take seriously women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Why are men with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome much more likely to be given a correct diagnosis than women? Why are confident men considered “strong” and “powerful” but women given derogatory adjectives like “controlling” for the same behavior? Things are changing, but we have far to go. And for more book club questions, just visit either author’s website, where there are not only book club questions, but information about what else to read regarding the San Francisco earthquake and even some delicious-sounding recipes.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.