I asked Jeanne Boulay why she had written a series of linked short stories rather than a continuous narrative.  “I wanted each of the women to hold their own spotlight. It connects to the inspiration for the book as a whole - my own experiences walking through historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The story was not about me… but about the stories that are buried there and wanting to give them voice… The book is an homage to the sacrifices women have made throughout history, especially those sacrifices that aren't acknowledged in our history books.”

 

The setting is a paradoxical usage of a cemetery in its beauty and place of nature and tourism with a contrast of a resting place for the dead. The author told me that when the 500 acres of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838, it was modeled after the "new trend" that began in Paris, the "garden/rural cemetery."  The famous Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, as well as the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts, altered how cemeteries were used. Even att its opening, Green-Wood was a famous tourist destination, second only to Niagara Falls in North America. Families would purchase plots and build mausoleums, and then hold picnics and parties there for a place to gather in the "country," outside of the city’s urban grime.

 

Jeanne creates characters that are fictional and some that are historical. The two historical figures are the entertainer Maggie Mitchell, rumored to have loved John Wilkes Booth. The story occurs before Lincoln’s assassination and shows Booth as a popular, handsome and charismatic actor.  The other real person was the Civil War era director of the Colored Orphanage Asylum, Sarah Garnett, now viewed as heroic for her actions to save black children fro lives of destitution and from the violence that plagued the area. One historic occasion used in the story was her welcoming of famous Sojourner Truth, a remarkable woman for her time and for ours. Weaving these historic women into the stories is a brilliant idea, grounding the fictional stories even more so into their eras.

 

The structure of the novel is not chronological, as one might expect, yet the order is very comprehensible and thoughtful, building themes and juxtaposing messages. We meander among the eras even as the characters find the different eras of the tombstones in the cemetery. A character in the next to last chapter, “The Side Gate,” ties the narratives together. The author, in fact, wrote this chapter last. In that story we read, “When the voices came, she (Mayra) listened; in her mind she imagined a thread spinning, its fibers thickening and lengthening, reaching through the wrought-iron gates opposite her building, threading through headstones and down into the damp ground until it tugged on something buried, spun itself around a deep clod of earth. Now the voice was tethered.” (162.). The thread that Mayra spoke of, tying together the stories among the ideas regarding the cemetery, women’s struggles and life battles that we all fight, no matter the era, status or circumstances. The connections in the stories are across time and place.

 

Each woman, no matter how the story resolves itself, struggles with her situation. Yet in this struggle she finds strength and, frequently, is forced or willingly creates new situations or new identities. While the endings are rarely happy endings, in some way they resolve the characters’ situations and reveal themes of resilience, chosen family, the power of place. Which women’s stories and voices survive is a theme of this novel. Clearly, the story of Green-Wood Cemetery survives.

​

The bakeries of Brooklyn, no matter the era, are well known, from breads to cakes. My Dad, a Deli owner, used to tell me that Brooklyn Bakeries were the best—he claimed it was because of the water. I have a delicious streusel coffee cake with the flavor cardamom added to the cake and streusel, giving it a unique and memorable flavor. This is a cake that you will wish to add to your favorite recipes box.