SHE WORE ONLY WHITE by Dörthe Binkert examines the lost
hopes and dreams of the passengers aboard the S.S.
Kroonland in 1904 through the mysterious appearance of a
stowaway.
As a stowaway, Valentina Meyer boards an ocean liner headed
for America wearing only a white, satin evening gown. She's
run from a life that has become unbearable after the death
of her only child but the price of freedom is more than she
expects.
Within the confines of an ocean voyage, a varied group of
passengers build intimate confidences and relationships
that can change the course of their futures.
Valentina acts as a mirror in which all the passengers can
reflect upon the course their lives have taken; the dreams
given up, the success they've achieved, and the future
before them. She boards in a white dress only, a blank
canvas in which everyone who comes into contact with her
can paint their dreams, hopes, failures, and fears upon
her. This leads to an almost fractured personality for
Valentina. At times, she's elegant, calm, regal and within
a sentence she's switched to naïve, childlike, despondent,
and fearful.
With the rather large cast of characters, each storyline
feels like it barely skimmed the surface of what could have
been highly interesting plot lines. Often the characters
skipped back into the past, reflecting on important moments
that shaped their lives. The only problem with this is it
stopped the present action cold.
The back and forth between past and present, the multiple
points of view, and even the manner which they story was
told (sometimes as if it is happening in the present,
sometimes as if we're reading witness accounts, sometimes
in the first person narrative) leave the story disjointed
and clunky.
The descriptions of the period are beautifully evocative,
bringing to life a time long gone by and the romanticism of
the turn of the century when progress marched hand in hand
with the limitless possibilities for the future.
SHE ONLY WORE WHITE takes the reader on a thought provoking
journey on how even the smallest of connections can change
the course of a life.
At the turn of the twentieth century, five thousand people a
day arrived at New York’s Ellis Island, their journeys to
America signifying a new beginning. But the ocean crossing
also has a deeper symbolic meaning: there comes a time for
us all when we find ourselves afloat, between phases of our
lives, where we say goodbye to our past and move on to new
horizons.
For Valentina Meyer, harboring a deep secret of tremendous
guilt and pain drives her to board a trans-Atlantic voyage
as a stowaway, searching desperately for a new life on a
distant shore. Accompanying her is a varied cast of
eccentric and unique individuals, each in search of a new
and better life. Finding solace—even love—in the
companionship of their fellow guests, their arrival in
America puts an abrupt end to their camaraderie as
Valentina’s future is immediately put in jeopardy. A
probing, affecting exploration of the hidden corners of the
human heart, She Wore Only White is literature at its finest.
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