The Nature of Fragile Things (2021) is the 14th novel by USA Today bestselling historical and women’s fiction writer Susan Meissner. The book tells the story of Sophie Whalen, a turn-of-the-20th-century Irish immigrant who becomes a wife and mother overnight after responding to an unknown man’s advertisement. Like Meissner’s other works, the novel uses an incident from 20th-century history—in this case, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—as a starting point and then tells a woman’s story around it. She blends specific historical detail with narratives that reflect the timeless factors of the female experience, such as making one’s way in the world, falling in love, and mothering. In addition to writing fiction, Meissner is a workshop leader and has a background in community journalism. This guide uses the 2021 Penguin Random House E-book edition.

Content Warning: This guide references scenes of domestic violence and includes a reference to suicide.

Plot Summary

Twenty-year-old Sophie Whalen’s mother hoped that New York would offer her a fresh start after poverty and infamy in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland. Instead, Sophie finds herself living in a tenement building and working in an umbrella factory with a surplus of Irish immigrant girls just like her. When she encounters Martin Hocking’s advertisement for a wife and mother in The New York Times, it seems like a form of salvation. Sophie eagerly travels to San Francisco and looks forward to making a new start with widowed Martin and his five-year-old daughter Kat in a beautiful new home on Polk Street. While Martin is handsome and respects her wish to sleep in separate bedrooms until they get to know each other, he is also aloof and travels for long periods of time. Meanwhile, Kat, who believes that her mother Candace’s death from tuberculosis is somehow her fault, is traumatized into silence. Over the next few months, Sophie, who is unable to have children of her own, grows to love Kat and brings her out of her shell. She has also begun to have sexual relations with Martin, although she knows that there is no love between them.

One day in April 1906, a pregnant young woman called Belinda Bigelow turns up looking for her husband James. The two women figure out that James Bigelow and Martin Hocking are the same man. Invading Martin’s desk of secrets, they also discover that he killed a woman named Annabeth Bigelow for her inheritance and that Kat’s mother Candace is still alive in a Tucson medical facility. Although Sophie fears losing Kat, she determines that she must return the girl to her mother. Belinda stays the night, and all three of them are awoken by Martin’s return. When Martin threatens pregnant Belinda with a letter opener, Kat pushes him down the stairs. The women determine to leave Martin debilitated in the kitchen while they go on with their plan of returning Kat to Candace.

When a devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco and Belinda goes into labor, their plans prove futile. Sophie and Kat take Belinda to the pavilion tent, where she gives birth to a healthy girl named Sarah. They are then separated from Belinda for a few days and assume that Martin is dead, as they have not heard from him. When all of them are reunited, Belinda insists that they come and stay at her inn in San Rafaela. A few days later, Sophie insists on taking Kat to Tucson to be reunited with her mother. Candace is in a frail state but overjoyed to see her daughter. She reveals that Martin was waiting for her to die so that Kat would get the inheritance she received from her sooner, and he would seize it himself. Candace reveals the tragedy of her life to Sophie. On marrying Martin, she was cut off from her family and experienced deep depression after the loss of two stillborn sons. This left her unable to properly nurture Kat. After Candace’s inquiries into Sophie’s identity, readers learn that Sophie once had a husband named Colm, who was violent toward her and caused her to give birth prematurely to a stillborn daughter. The two women bond over their shared trauma and agree that Kat cannot continue living between an inn and a medical facility. While Candace thinks that she and Kat should go and live with a distant cousin in Texas, Sophie persuades her that Kat needs to feel like part of a family circle with Belinda and Sarah and that Candace should join them while she is still alive. Thus, Candace agrees to come to San Rafaela and writes that Sophie will be Kat’s legal guardian when she dies.

Sophie returns to the house in San Francisco to see if there are any remains of Martin. She thinks she has found a shard of bone, when her old neighbor Libby apprehends her and, on learning of Martin’s disappearance, insists that she goes to the police station. Sophie is forced to report the disappearance and see a detective.

Candace has since passed away, and Sophie makes plans to build a little cottage for her and Kat on Belinda’s property, when she is summoned back to the San Francisco police station.

There, a federal investigator, US Marshal Ambrose Logan, insists he knows why Sophie let six weeks pass before she reported her husband’s disappearance. Sophie repeatedly makes the excuse that her husband was traveling. However, Logan reveals that he knows the truth about Belinda, Candace, and Annabeth. He also says that while the other women were wealthy and sought after by Martin for their money, dispossessed Sophie is the anomaly. This makes her look like Martin’s accomplice, especially as she has become Kat’s legal guardian and appears to have hastened Candace’s death by taking her out of medical supervision. Logan then reveals that if Sophie did leave Martin to die, it would be more than this sadistic man deserved, as his crimes also included homicide and an attempt to arrange a sister’s suicide. Martin also changed identities many times, collecting numerous birth and death certificates.

Logan then wants Sophie to reveal her truth, beginning with her real name. It turns out that Sophie Whalen was the name of a younger sister who died in infancy, and the heroine’s real name was Saoirse Whalen McGough at the time of emigrating. She swapped her name for her sister’s because she killed her husband Colm after his violence led to her giving birth to a stillborn daughter and needing to have her reproductive organs removed. Due to village gossip after Colm’s alleged death, Saoirse was forced to seek expedited immigration to America, and she did so under her sister’s name to avoid being identified. Her haste to answer Martin’s advertisement was in part precipitated by the arrival in New York of a girl from the neighboring village who might have recognized her. On hearing her truth, Logan is understanding and agrees to let her go. He implores her to keep his handkerchief as a reminder of their agreement.

Saoirse raises Kat in San Rafaela and later marries a man named Sam. In 1926, Kat is in Carson City and learns that a man with her father’s description is being tried. He recognizes her in the moment after he is sentenced to death for his crimes. Kat goes toward the people who love her, content that this man is finally paying for his crimes.