The Nature of Fragile Things

The San Francisco earthquake of the morning of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, is a historical event, which occurs at the pivotal narrative point when Martin comes home to find two of his wives, Sophie and Belinda, conspiring against him. While his six-year-old daughter Kat’s action of pushing him down the stairs has temporarily paralyzed him, the swiftly ensuing natural disaster provides the illusion that he has been killed in the quake, giving the women a grace period to mask his whereabouts while they try to rebuild the lives he destroyed. From the outset, Sophie thinks the earthquake is her accomplice in getting rid of Martin and preventing him from further harm, as “for one lone second I think the earth is going to open up beneath me and swallow Martin whole to save me the trouble of having to do it later” (152).

Because the earthquake is so central to the plot, Meissner is determined to present both the geological phenomenon and the subsequent fires “as accurately as possible,” going to archives and consulting local San Francisco historians (365). According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the San Francisco earthquake “ranks as one of the most significant earthquakes of all time” (

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