Hazel Gaynor | Our Review of THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME

"Surviving the Titanic disaster and picking up the pieces"

The Girl Who Came Home Hazel Gaynor

Reviewed by Clare O'Beara

The tragedy of the Titanic continues to fascinate us. This well-written story
shows the point of view of some of the ordinary travellers aboard her - Maggie
Murphy, leaving Ireland with her family, is one. THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME starts
with her last moments in the only home she has known, a rural Irish cottage, as
fourteen people from her small parish in County Mayo pack up and head off for a
better life in America. Maggie is leaving behind a young man, Seamus Doyle, and
she promises to write.

Harry Walsh is a crewman, a steward with White Star Lines, proud to be working
on the maiden voyage of such a fine vessel. He's only assigned to the third
class passengers, but he's determined to give them equally as good a service as
the millionaires aboard. The scale of the ship in dock is quite staggering to
all viewing her in Southampton. Some of the wealthy people even bring their
small dogs aboard.

Fast forward to Grace Butler, darting admiring looks at a fellow student's
Converse sneakers during journalism class. Grace has a Chicago-Irish background
and the Chicago Tribune invites her to send them a feature article. All she
needs is a topic... for personal reasons it is two years before she goes ahead
and writes this, using as inspiration her great-grandmother Maggie's story of
surviving the Titanic shipwreck. Maggie had shock and survivor's guilt, and did
not speak of her experience until this time.

Details are lovely with mentions of the Foxford Woollen Mills in Ireland and
apple blossoms falling like confetti on the heads of giggling girls. I was
struck by the simplicity of the few possessions carried by the steerage
travellers. An unmarried Irish lady has set herself up well in America and
travels back to visit relatives regularly, filling their heads with descriptions
of a splendid life. Telegrams, or Marconigrams as they were called, from the
actual period dot the book, bringing home the aching reality. While we know the
fate of the ship, there are many secondary characters whose lives hang in the
balance, creating tension. Grace learns that we should never take life for
granted; seeing how her great-grandmother picked herself up inspires her to get
on with being the best she can be and stop denying her talents.

Hazel Gaynor based her book on the true story of the Addergoole Parish and researched thoroughly while writing THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME. She is an English writer who now lives in Ireland. Her retelling of this fateful few days, coupled with the modern account, brings to life the heart and soul of the people caught up in this disaster. Reading it helps us to a better understanding of the period, the loss and the survivors.

About THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME

A voyage across the ocean becomes the odyssey of a lifetime for a young Irish woman. . . . Ireland, 1912 . . .

Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a
better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is
bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains
in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes,
Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a
New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that
fateful night again.

Chicago, 1982 . . .

Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what
comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about
Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace
new direction—and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those
they thought lost long ago.

Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and
fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on
survivors and their descendants.

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