The Unresolved [Hardcover]

Mallory Meer turns fifteen the week before she boards a steamship in 1904 on what will be her last voyage before the steamship burns and kills her and a thousand others. Yet she lingers, a ghost, unable to leave her love or family until the fire's setters are brought to justice. Turn-of-the-century Manhattan comes to life in a wonderfully different kind of ghost story.

There's a whole genre of young adult books that would have me running to find the nearest Graham Greene. The Unresolved is one of the rare young adult novels that can entertain adults who were alive when Carter was President.

Welsh takes an oft overlooked chapter of New York history and breathes life into it by making his main character otherworldly. The sense of unrest and unease is uniquely potrayed as not just the province of those souls in limbo, but also of the very real flesh and blood cast that are living in early twentieth century New York. The intrigue, jealousies and destructive behavior are taut enough to satisfy any modern millie,(imagine early twentieth century Desperate Housewives angst)while keeping the veracity of the historical perspective.

T K Welsh proves that you don't have to be a wizard to write a book that both parents and children will read and enjoy. I look forward to his future endeavors.

Mallory Meer, 13-year old Lutheran German immigrant, dies on the deck of the General Slocum, a steamship, as she sails up the East River during a church outing, in New York, 1904. We learn this in the first paragraph of The Unresolved, a mesmerizing, often brilliant new historical YA novel by T.K. Welsh. Of the 1,200 or so who set sail that fateful summer morning, over a thousand perished: drowned or burned to death aboard the blazing General Slocum. Mallory keeps a rendezvous with a beautiful young teenage boy named Dustin Brauer, a poor kid, and Jewish, with whom she shares her first kiss ... and it is he who is blamed for the disaster by the grieving citizenry of Kleindeutchland, on Manhattan's lower east side, as they struggle to cope with the loss of their loved ones.

Caught in that netherspace between this world and the next, there is no place where Mallory belongs. She cannot remain, now that she dangles upside down from those shipboards, and quite dead, burned black and in pieces - all now that remains of the General Slocum. Nor can she finally move on - though she'd like to - to that other space, until those responsible for the tragedy are exposed, judged and punished, the dead finally avenged, and her hunger to linger with Dustin dissolves.

There is a public trial. None of the ship's safety measures lived up to their promise. Life vests disintegrated as they soaked up sea water, dragging the desperate who wore them down to a watery grave. Fire hoses burst like overstuffed sausages. The lifeboats were lashed to the deck, contemptuously rigid, uncompromising. The crew was both cowardly and untrained. Those responsible were indicted and ultimately paraded before a public inquest by the city coroner, cross-examined and often found guilty. In the end, however, it was only the captain who fell, the tastiest of lambs, already cooked by the fire.

And there is a private trial, as Dustin - the sad, handsome boy Mallory loves - is reviled as the cause of the tragedy, and the rest of his family are disgraced and debased by the anti-Semitic community.

The Unresolved is a story of a love that's so great the rupture of death cannot break it. It's a story of a girl's spirit, unresolved yet resilient, betwixt this and what follows; neither child nor adult; neither lover nor friend. It's a story of the ultimate outsider.

What a startling, evocative and promising debut! The Unresolved, T.K. Welsh's first novel for young adults, is at turns mesmerizing, breathtaking, informative, entertaining, heart-breaking and redemptive. Clearly constructed upon a platform of exhaustive research, you will soar upon its language, while feeling yourself drawn downward, downward, into the dark whirlpool of this beautiful new novel. Set in the 1904 German immigrant community of Kleindeutchland, on Manhattan's lower east side, Mallory Meer's dark, curious world is yours for the page-turning. A must for any teenage girl, aged 13+, who likes historical fiction, who feels uncertain of her place in the world, and who has ever been in love.