The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic

Author/Guide: Hazel Gaynor

Why a Booktrail?

1912: Inspired by true events, this is the real story, the human story of the Titanic

ISBN: 978-0062316868
Genre: Fiction, Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

Ireland, 1912 – Everyone thinks they know the story of the Titanic but this is the personal and poignant story of 14 people from the same small village in Ireland who set sail for a new life in America. Maggie Murphy is one of those on board hoping fora new future but also fearful of laving her sweetheart Séamus behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the lucky few passengers in steerage who survives. But she is scared by what she has experienced.

Chicago, 1982 – Journalist Grace Butler learns of a terrible secret that her grandmother Maggie has kept hidden for many years. She is always looking for the next big story but never expects to find it so close to home. And never does she expect the changes in her own life to follow.

Locations

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England
A: Southampton - the pier

Travel Guide

The story of Titanic is one of the most awful maritime disasters in history. This account is unique as it’s a fictional one based on real life characters and packed with real life emotions and viewpoints of all those on board the ship that was said to be unsinkable. Sailing from Southhampton, there is now a Tourist Titanic Trail which features many settings where the crew lived and where they ate and drank before boarding .

Hazel has based this novel on a true story of the Addergoole Fourteen, a group of men and women from County Mayo, Ireland and woven it into a tale of realistic heartbreak and human perseverance.

Maggie, represents the voice of the unforgotten steerage passengers and the trauma they all suffered whilst trying to get on board a lifeboat. Conditions on the greatest ship in the world were not grand for them and so to see the sinking and the events before and after through their eyes is a raw and poignant experience.

This one day changed so many lives and the survivors were left with an immense sense of guilt. The story she unravels to her granddaughter is heightened by the personal connection as she passes on one of the most remarkable stories – she kept a diary on board and so the reader gets to see some remarkable sights through her eyes.

The chaos on the ship, the grief of those who waved them off, the panic waiting for those on the New York docks and the fate of the 14 Irish group-gives a remarkable insight into the full scale, the human scale of this infamous disaster