The Garment Maker's Daughter by Hillary Adrienne Stern

Starting with two immigrants arriving at the Ellis Island processing centre this novel looks at how their lives pan out form their inauspicious arrival in 1917.  Lena and Daniel's stories become strangely intertwined from his first glimpse of her on the ship to meeting her again at Night School.  This is a real relationship so they fall away from each other and reconnect and fall away again - you get the idea.

Whilst the people in this story feel real there is little characterisation.  It very much feels we are outside looking in and only see what they want to show us of their lives.  We know maybe the most about Lena but even then I never at any stage felt I knew her or really understood her motives.  There are a core cluster of 5 people in this book - Lena Kerner nee Rothman, Daniel Cowan, Sophie Friedman, Daniel Cowan and later in the book Rachel Rothman.  We get glimpses of all their daily lives throughout the book and it does jump from place to place and year to year with seeming impunity but this is no bad thing as it keeps you reading to see what next happens to Daniel because this chapter is about Jake and then when that ends you want to know what happens to him and on and on it goes.

There is no real plot as such.  This is just the unfolding of the lives of these driven and determined people up to the 1950s.  As a social history it has some insights but there are few that we are not already aware of and there is little depth to them.  There is an awful lot here about the Unionisation of America and struggles for fair employment and that seems to be the main drift of the authors "agenda".  It is quite politically charged but this did not lessen my enjoyment of the book which did surprise me somewhat.  Maybe this was because this is offset by moments of genuine warmth and camaraderie between the characters.

The war years are glossed over and so are racial tensions prevalent both now and then.  In fact whole years are omitted which means that what could be a boring catalogue of daily events is not given the chance to develop.  what I did find jarring was that everyone became if not exactly wealthy they were at least very, very successful in their chosen fields, which simply did not ring true at all and I am sure that it is not an indicative representation of life for Jewish Immigrants to the United States except in the opening chapters when they work for little pay and live in shoddy accommodations.

It is a tale of hope though and a tale that makes you believe no matter what happens the power to change your lot in life lies your hands and yours alone.  It is not an easy read and does challenge your preconceptions about life then and, thusly, life now.  With single motherhood, working conditions, homosexuality, thwarted affections and friendship being discussed.  Told from a third person perspective it tells us how the character feels without that character narrating directly to us and I think this is why it is so hard to connect with the people as they inhabit the page.  Much of what I read now is very much first person and it feels a little odd to read this more traditional form of story telling.  In fact it was almost refreshing to step back to an earlier form of the novel.

I do think describing it as a sweeping saga has the touch of hyperbole about it and although I would not hesitate to recommend the book I would do so with the caveat that you do need to engage brain before reading - if only to keep up with everyone and their fast diverging lives from a joint starting point.

**Review originally published December 22nd, 2017**