Guardians of the Gates by Vincent N. Parillo
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Genre: Historical Fiction Main characters: Matt Stafford Time and place: 1890s-1900s, Ellis Island First sentence: “Slow, steady rain fell, dimpling the otherwise smooth, dark river waters.” Verdict: Instructive :) |
Summary:
The book opens in 1983, with the first visit of Joseph Senner, the newly appointed Commissioner of Immigration, on Ellis Island, his new domain. Together with him, we, the readers, get to discover what the conditions for the immigrants were like in the 1890s, and how the next decade affected the inner workings of the inspection station.
This is also the story of Matt Stafford, one of the Island’s doctors, and how his position there affected his own life. But in the end this is a book about the Island, first and foremost.
General impression
I have always found Ellis Island fascinating, despite my not really pursuing the curiosity I had about it. A permanent thought I had while reading was that ‘those were the times’. Those were the times that built America, as many of New York’s landmarks were erected at the beginning of the century. Those were the times when America still treated the rest of the world as people, and, while reading, I yearned for that time. A time when everyone who had a dream could just board a ship and go out and make it happen. Nowadays pretty much the opposite holds true: I, my countrymen, and people in many more countries have to jump through hoops to be allowed to just come visit for a while. Getting to actually live there is next to impossible for many. Which is why I spent basically all the pages of the book that mentioned immigrants envying them their chances, and their freedom1 :)
Personal feelings out of the way, let’s get back to the book. I must say I would have guessed the author is a scholar in the immigration field, or at least an Ellis Island aficionado, due to the vast amount of information related to the Island he cannot help mentioning now and then. An example:
“Three massive, lateral arches, extending well up into the second story, framed the entrances. Above each perched a concrete American eagle and the American coat of arms, with elaborate cornices farther up. It was 385 feet by 165 feet, larger than a football field. Its attractive design enchanted the viewer, and its sheer size enhanced further its domination of the small island.”
It’s passages like this one that make the book read more like non-fiction rather than fiction at times. The mere presence of the numbers, informative as it may be, is also cold and unemotional, and distances the reader from the story. Adding to that the fact that about half the book is spent having various people giving a tour of the island to other people2, you will understand what I mean by its being obviously written by a scholar or aficionado.
However, this isn’t to say it’s a badly written book. On the contrary, I think the author has a knack for writing descriptions3. Look at this passage, for example:
The hall was virtually the full size of the building itself. Its vastness was enhanced by the cathedral ceiling and the light–even on this overcast day–that filtered through the tall, eave-high windows. A wide-planked pine floor, resembling a sailing ship’s deck so familiar to the arriving ocean voyagers, set off the woodwork. The place even seemed to have the scent of a ship. Ten parallel aisles, framed by railings, marked where the immigrants began the screening process. Potted plants, American flags, and red, white, and blue bunting festooned the hall.
Even now, the third or fourth time I read this particular quote, it still makes me feel like I am there, and I find that quite remarkable :)
Characters
Woven among the scores of real people there are also a handful of fictional ones. The characterization is not the book’s forte; it is done quite well at times but it seems a bit heavy handed at others4.
I don’t think there could have been any chance for me not to like Matt :) He is a hard worker and a reliable person; his inner feelings are being offered just enough ‘page space’ for the reader to understand his choices, even when they are less-than-noble ones.
As for Nicole, the female lead, I really and truly did not like her. This may be because, unlike Matt, her feelings are only rarely explored, and then in just a handful of words. And even those few words do her a disservice at times — such as when we’re told that her boyfriend was okay for her, until she met Matt, who was more attractive. And for a while she has no scruples having a (sort of) relationship with Matt, despite the fact that they were both seriously involved with someone else (Matt is married). And then all of a sudden she thinks ‘oh, but what we’re doing is wrong’, and breaks it off. And then one evening she has sex with Matt, just like that, without a thought about the feelings of any of the other people involved.
Before anyone will accuse me of ‘blaming the woman for the affair’, this is not what am I doing. Thing is, Matt at least tries to fight his attraction towards Nicole; she never does, she just takes whatever she wants and the rest of the world be damned. To be fair, I don’t think this is how the author intended her to be, I think the idea was to have her be just as sympathetic a character as Matt is. However, since we know very little of her actual feelings, most of the time one cannot know whether she has any scruples or not, and as her actions by themselves do not show her having any, I really had no reason to like her, quite the opposite.
Relationships
The problem with Matt and Nicole’s relationship is that it wasn’t sufficiently explored. I think the author wanted them to share this all-consuming, irresistible passion, that had them longing for one another years after it actually happened. However, a love like that cannot just appear overnight, and be believable for a reader. We know that Matt thought Nicole intriguing and very beautiful; Nicole thought him very attractive too. And… that’s about it. What I would have liked to see is having them spending time together, and getting to really know each other (for more than one evening, I mean); I would have liked to see them gradually become close friends, and confidants, and only then, after unsuccessfully trying to resist the passion blossoming between them, only then I would have accepted there was something real between them, real enough to last & real enough to be worth breaking other people’s hearts. Having them go out to dinner once can be a good start to a relationship, but it cannot be enough to (believably) last them oh so many years.
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A thing I very much liked
Something one rarely sees in fiction books, and this book has: pictures :) :)
Pictures of the places and things as they were back then — for example, when Matt takes a hansom cab there is also a picture of a hansom cab — for the reader to be able to put images to the things and places mentioned in the book. I absolutely love old photos, so I was delighted to find those, I wish more authors would do that. Although, of course, this also strengthened the ‘non-fiction’ vibe of the book :)
Thoughts on the title
“I’m one of the guardians of this gateway to opportunity“, a character once says. Many of the Ellis Island officers refer to themselves as The Guardians in the book. I loved this imagery — it makes me imagine America having these huge, golden gates, with armored people brandishing flaming swords as guardians, denying entry to those deemed unfit — and I think it a lovely title.
Thoughts on the ending
Somewhat contrived, but it was definitely the best ending available for (almost) everyone involved. All the plot threads were nicely tied. However, it seemed to me it ended rather abruptly, as there was one particular scene I’ve been looking forward to for the best part of the book:
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and the book ended before that.
Recommend it to?
The best match for this book are people that (just like me) know very little about Ellis Island and the immigration process back then and want to know more. The author is an expert on immigration, so he knows what he’s talking about, and it shows.
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- I do not mean by this that I dream of moving to the States, because, while I admit the USA is great and all, my heart belongs to Europe. Yet this is a topic that I am emotionally invested in, for various reasons. [↩]
- a device that the author uses quite well, each instance of it being well-written, but vastly overuses, in that there are far too many instances of it in a book that’s supposed to be about something else [↩]
- when he doesn’t use numbers, that is :) [↩]
- such as the villain having vulgar thoughts, just to make sure we know he is the villain [↩]
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