The Fires: A Novel by Rene Steinke

by Rene Steinke

"Once I tried to burn an old toy--a mechanical duck. When I'd found it at the bottom of a drawer, it reminded me of the groggy sunrise Easter service and the hunt for eggs in the graveyard. After I set the match to its tail, it started walking pitifully on its metal legs, and it knocked around the room singeing the walls and linoleum until it burned down to its metal frame and folded with a crackle and small battery explosion. It is less dangerous to burn things than to save them." Ella, 22, is a trapped young woman limited to the flickers of release she finds in pyromania. Having abandoned college, she is stuck in her small, Midwestern hometown, suffocated by the silence of her repressed mother and grandmother and physically encased in ropy scars from the fire in which she was severely burned as a child. In this mesmerizing first novel, we follow her incendiary trail as Ella tries to cope with many her father to cancer; her grandfather to suicide; her favorite aunt, whose whereabouts are unknown; and, finally, her sense of herself--both apart from and as one with the shocking scars that bind her skin. Ella pokes nervously at smoldering truths, but in her family the lies come as quick and fast as the deaths--and each new deceit sparks the impulse to inflame. Fire is made of grief, Ella believes, and she witnesses plenty of both in a story as entrancing and powerful as the lick and curl of a flame. --Brangien Davis

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

René Steinke is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her most recent novel, Friendswood (Riverhead), was named one of National Public Radio’s "Great Reads" of 2014. Friendswood was shortlisted for the St. Francis Literary Prize, and it was an Amazon Book of the Month. Her previous novel, Holy Skirts, an imaginative retelling of the life of the artist and provocateur, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, was a Finalist for the National Book Award. Her first novel is The Fires. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, O Magazine, Redbook, Houstonia, Salon, Bookforum, and in anthologies. She is the former Editor of The Literary Review, where she remains Editor-at-Large. She has taught at the New School and at Columbia University, and she is currently the Director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

The prose of this novel is rich and poetic as we follow Ella, a 22 yr old woman, through that crooked place between childhood and adulthood, between following the path that our parents told us would be there, and finding our own paths.

Here, Steinke uses fire, in the past (Ella bears scares from childhood) and in the present (Ella is fascinated by fire, and begins to set them) as the motif for destruction and change. I found the whole novel satisfying and cathartic.

[Veronica F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing, the words flowed and chopped. I thoroughly enjoyed the actual writing. However, the story left much to be desired. It built and built and built then never quite sparked.

[Hayley · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's the basis of what could have been a really good novel in the mess that is The Fires, but it's just put together all wrong. The main character Ella is more an amalgamation of dysfunctions that probably aimed at making someone intriguing and tortured, but only leaves a confused impression of a person where her sole good quality is that she isn't a racist. The plot has a lot of revelations about Ella's family that are good on paper, but presented in the wrong order so that the tension leeches out almost immediately after the first big plot twist at the plot's mid-point. I wanted to care, but couldn't in the end.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stream of consciene style from the POV of Ella, a strong and spunky character who worms her way into the reader's heart and stays there.

[Kellanselle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh... I picked up this book because I'm a sucker for titles and interesting-looking covers. I thought the book would lead somewhere. All of the "unknown family secrets" were not very interesting. They left me thinking, "That's it?" They certainly weren't big enough reasons to carry on the way they did throughout the book. I also thought there was going to be some hidden reason for the main character having burns all over her body, but no. There wasn't even closure at the end. The story was just over with no real resolution. Waste of my time.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps because I read this book almost immediately following The Seas (Samantha Hunt) and they share plot elements, I was left wanting something more/different. The story is engaging and the characters very well developed--albeit damaged.

[Jennifer]

eh. very dark. glad it was short.

[Lenore · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not big on character development or even world creation/development. It wasn't my style.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me.... read about 75 pages and gave up.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book ages and ages ago but when I think about it, I still taste smoke in my mouth.