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3.0 out of 5 stars
Just OK, May 17 2004
As a history prof, I see lots of other historical novels that put this one to shame.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Tragedy, Oct 27 2003
The attention of many of the professionals of the state of Johnstown is being attracted to the Dam of Johnstown, near a very large lake. One of the professionals of the state, a lawyer, James Talbot, tells his business manager that the dam is very weak and should be closed down until it undergoes restructuring, for the safety of the people. However, his business manager disagrees with him, justifying himself with the point that, under the Dam are the town's most wealthy people, vacationing in the Clubhouse. He did not want to inconvenience those people due to their wealth and power. Thus, the Dam remained open, to James' disgust.
In Boston, this drew the attention of one young engineer, Mr. Morris, and he began professionally restructuring the dam, strengthening it. Yet, there was a danger and risk involved. If the water reached a certain level inside the dam, it would flood and burst, endangering the lives of the people of Johnstown. After about fifty years, in 1879, the Dam once again began failing, and fell, once again, into very poor condition. Many contractors bought the Dam, to the delight of the Dam's previous owners. All the previous owners wanted most was to get the Dam out of their hands, to be free from responsibility of it, they saw it as a bother. Therefore, when one man went to buy it off of another owner, that owner would be very happy to be free of it. Unfortunately, though contractors bought the Dam, none ever took the responsibility of maintaining it. Instead, they poured out all their energies and money into providing more comfort for the already wealthy environment of the Clubhouse, for the enjoyment of the people. That money could have been invested into repairing the dangerous Dam that was in very faulty condition. No one knew what dangers this Dam could have brought to the people below, monumental dangers.
In the times of the rains, all of Johnstown was flooding. The lake underneath the Dam was flooding as well. Therefore, there was not enough room for the water released from the Dam to fall into, and instead, it would flood into the rest of the town. This is exactly what happened. In 1889, the Dam reached its maximum height, and burst, throwing millions of tons of water into Johnstown, and washing the town away, covering it with water. Everything was lost, and this was the end of Johnstown, due to the flooding of the neglected Dam.
None of the main characters that were described in the novel had a specific role in the plot of the story. Instead, they were all submerged into equal roles in the plot. There was a love story surrounding the main event of the bursting of the Dam and flooding of Johnstown. And the novel described many of the relationships the people of Johnstown had with each other. They seemed to be all united into one family. Every one knew each other. I think this bond within the people contributed greatly to the tragedy of the event. For we felt like we were a part of that union, and to see it completely diminished by the flooding is very emotional. Especially regarding the story of the young love between Nora Talbot, a scientist, and daughter of the lawyer who first took part in the Dam, James Talbot, and Daniel Fallon, a son of one of the characters, a veteran, Frank Fallon.
This novel is more like the telling of a historical event. Although it involves tragedy and romance, the story is centered on the historical event of the flooding of Johnstown due to a neglected Dam, because Nora and Daniel's romance was just beginning to flourish after many years of shy and distant encounters, when their lives were unexpectedly ended due to this flooding. Yet, it is good, because it is the combination of a regular novel, because it includes romance, yet involves historical facts, such as this event of the Dam of Johnstown. Therefore, I could recommend it to anyone who likes reading novels, specifically to a more mature audience, since it also has educational aspects to it. It is a novel centered on a historical event. Yet, if one is easily depressed, reading this book may not be a good idea, for it is very tragic to be sentimentally bonded to a relationship in the book, and then see it all diminish so rapidly. Yet, this was to be expected since the beginning of the novel.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Life before an epic catastrophe..., Dec 15 2002
At the end of the 19th Century, America is a nation of vast opportunity and evolving values, certainly obsessed with the vast fortunes amassed by the likes of Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Mellon. Their private resort above the industrialized town of Johnstown, PA, is a jewel in the crown of the vast wealth of these Robber Barons. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Lodge features a man-made lake braced by an ill-repaired dam that ultimately imperils the town resting at its valley floor.Using personal detail to humanize this disaster, Cambor introduces complex characters from Johnstown as well as one family who summers for a brief two weeks each year at South Fork, albeit a family not of the highest level of that very particular pecking order. In Johnstown we meet Julia of the broken spirit and her husband Frank, helpless against life's random cruelties, their proud son Daniel, and Grace, a runaway from an unbearably lonely life. Representing South Fork is the idealistic Nora, a child of fortune who reaches beyond her personal limitations before everything changes forever. The novel actually ends with the flood, a vast surge of water from the ruptured dam, unleashing death and devastation that Memorial Day, May 30, 1889, obliterating Johnstown in minutes. I confess I wanted more detail about the actual flood and its physical consequences, who survived and who took responsibility. This is but a small complaint in a rich novel of American life on the cusp of a new century, a time when the American Dream still twinkles in the eye of the working man and when hard work promises a guarantee, security for a man's family after a life of labor. Detail is crafted into every page, days lived in hope and reason, pride and dignity. But, lest I wax too nostalgic, their time is cut short by nature's wrath and the enormous cost of privilege for the few. The novel opens with this quote, setting the tone for the quiet unfolding of catastrophe: "I have been watching you; you were there, unconcerned perhaps, but with the strange distraught air of someone forever expecting a great misfortune, in sunlight, in a beautiful garden" (Maurice Maeterlinck). Indeed, such disasters do create a sense of vigilance, of dreams discarded and the sad loss of innocence.
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