She Wore Only White
Written by Dörthe Binkert
Narrated by Mel Foster
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
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.
Dörthe Binkert
German author Dörthe Binkert’s acclaimed first novel, She Wore Only White, merged history and fiction in the resplendent tale of a young woman fleeing her past on a transatlantic voyage to America. Binkert, who has published nonfiction as well as fiction, has a PhD in literature, and spent decades working as an editor and editor-in-chief for several major German publishing houses. Now a freelance writer, she lives in Zurich, Switzerland.
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Reviews for She Wore Only White
25 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I have tried so hard to get interested in this, but now I give up.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I have to say that I really hated this book. I disliked how the author jumped from person to person describing Valentina, especially since she did not tell us who was giving their account until the end of the passage. This book was very slow moving and seemed to go nowhere.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A young woman, dressed in a stunning evening gown of white, boards a NYC bound ocean liner in Antwerp and immediately stirs up gossip and speculation. In 1902 when the Kroonland sets sail on a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, Valentina boards at the last moment and throws herself upon the mercy of a senior crewman that she knows. Once the ship has set sail, he brings the young woman to the captain. Valentina admits to being a stowaway and throws herself upon the mercy of the captain. She says that she is running away from her old life and hopes to begin anew in New York. Since she is obviously a lady of quality, she is given a stateroom to stay in and told that she may only have freedom of the ship in the evening due to her lack of otherwise suitable clothing. Along the way she is helped by several others who make her journey tolerable and she also manages to fall in love – even though she is running away from a husband and the recent death of a child.As we follow Valentina’s journey we meet several noteworthy characters: a sculptor whose work will be displayed at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, a married gentleman who is traveling with his newly pregnant mistress, a young man and his frail sister, the ship’s doctor, and the pompous captain along with Jan, the officer who helped Valentina escape her life. Each of these characters would be worthy of a book of their own as their backstories are full of twists as turns. But as so often happens on board a ship, we are allowed only a cross-section of these stories pertaining to their relationships while at sea.She Wore Only White is based on a true story and gives us insight into the trials and tribulations of not only the lower classes (steerage) but also of those priviledged first-class travelers. I would have liked a bit more in the way of interaction between the classes. The dialogue felt stilted (translation perhaps from the original book?) and the entire thing was much too introspective for me. There were no disasters like with Titanic, although some of the characters could have done with an ice-berg sized shake-up.