Today we focus on a Staten Island novel whose protagonist is a spunky Irish lass from Dublin. In “Cinders to Satin” (1984) by Fern Michaels, Callie James immigrates to New York during the Potato Famine but before she is allowed to begin her new life is forced to endure some time in Staten Island’s Quarantine Station. Living conditions are brutal and inequitable treatment of the poor is described, as are the porous conditions of the facility’s gates (peddlers, friends and family members are allowed to come ago, a foreshadowing perhaps of the spread of disease to the surrounding community, which led to the destruction of the Quarantine by vigilantes in 1858).
Finally released from the Quarantine, she takes a position as a domestic for the wealthy Powers family of Todt Hill, and begins a series of relationships with the caddish scion of the family, a crusading journalist and an alcoholic laborer.
Fern Michaels was the pseudonym of co-authors Roberta Anderson and Mary Kuczkir, who co-wrote many historical and contemporary romances. Since 1989, Mrs. Kuczkir obtained the sole legal right to the name Fern Michaels and has continued using the pseudonym for her solo works. https://www.fernmichaels.com/
Staten Island in Fiction 