The Nature of Fragile Things

The first chapter features US Marshal Ambrose Logan’s interview of 22-year-old Sophie Hocking on November 6, 1906, in San Francisco. Readers learn that Sophie’s maiden name was Whalen. She was born in County Down, Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1903. She spent nearly her first two years in the US in Lower Manhattan, New York. She married Martin Hocking on March 10, 1905, at the San Francisco courthouse. Her husband went missing after the San Francisco earthquake on April 18, 1906, but Sophie only reported his disappearance six weeks later.

While Sophie’s case was originally the province of a local detective, a marshal has been brought in to solve it because Martin’s disappearance is deemed to be of federal interest. Logan asks Sophie why she waited six weeks to report that her husband was missing to the police. Sophie answers that, because her husband travels for work, “I didn’t know for sure he was missing at first” (3). The marshal asks Sophie to confirm that she fled her Polk Street home with her stepdaughter Katharine immediately after the earthquake. She further confirms that the house was still standing at the time, although everything inside it had broken.