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The Arsonist
From the best-selling author of While I Was Gone and The Senator's Wife, a superb new novel about a family and a community tested when an arsonist begins setting fire to the homes of the summer people in a small New England town.
Troubled by the feeling that she belongs nowhere after working in East Africa for 15 years, Frankie Rowley has come home-home to the small New Hampshire town of Pomeroy and the farmhouse where her family has always summered. On her first night back, a house up the road burns to the ground. Is it an accident, or arson? Over the weeks that follow, as Frankie comes to recognize her father's slow failing and her mother's desperation, another house burns, and then another, always the homes of summer people. These frightening events, and the deep social fault lines that open in the town as a result, are observed and reported on by Bud Jacobs, a former political journalist, who has bought the local paper and moved to Pomeroy in an attempt to find a kind of home himself. As this compelling book unfolds, as Bud and Frankie begin an unexpected, passionate affair, arson upends a trusting small community where people have never before bothered to lock their doors; and Frankie and Bud bring wholly different perspectives to the questions of who truly owns the land, who belongs in the town, and how, or even whether, newcomers can make a real home there.
Troubled by the feeling that she belongs nowhere after working in East Africa for 15 years, Frankie Rowley has come home-home to the small New Hampshire town of Pomeroy and the farmhouse where her family has always summered. On her first night back, a house up the road burns to the ground. Is it an accident, or arson? Over the weeks that follow, as Frankie comes to recognize her father's slow failing and her mother's desperation, another house burns, and then another, always the homes of summer people. These frightening events, and the deep social fault lines that open in the town as a result, are observed and reported on by Bud Jacobs, a former political journalist, who has bought the local paper and moved to Pomeroy in an attempt to find a kind of home himself. As this compelling book unfolds, as Bud and Frankie begin an unexpected, passionate affair, arson upends a trusting small community where people have never before bothered to lock their doors; and Frankie and Bud bring wholly different perspectives to the questions of who truly owns the land, who belongs in the town, and how, or even whether, newcomers can make a real home there.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
364 people are currently reading
5146 people want to read
About the author
Sue Miller
58 books937 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
Sue Miller is an American novelist and short story writer who has written a number of best-selling novels. She graduated from Radcliffe College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,009 reviews
January 30, 2021
Once I started, I had to finish, breaking one of my cardinal rules: life is too short to stay with books that are not your cup of tea. In order to be fair, since I am required to review this book, I feel I have to finish it. But what a slog. Maybe I've read too many of this type of novel, but I really expected more from Sue Miller who is a very accomplished author. But she has a maybe 100 page book here, plot-wise. And it is 300+ pages. In an interview, Tony Hillerman once pointed out that his basic plot needs padding or his books would all be 50 pages long, but his padding included character development, back stories, subplots and intrigue. Here, we learn about every outfit, every hair style, and whether Frankie has painted her toenails or not. If you are fascinated by the fact that she's wearing a green sweater before dashing off to track down her missing father, then by all means, pick this up. Otherwise, pass. You'll have time added onto your life that was taken away from mine.
March 25, 2015
1.5 soporific stars
Sue Miller's The Arsonist, perhaps a little surprisingly, I found to be a spectacularly dull drama that just couldn't measure up to the strength of the title, cover art, or premise. The idea enticed me: An American woman Frankie Rowley, on break from her job of eradicating hunger in Africa in the 90's, comes back to her family's summer house in Pomeroy, New Hampshire, a town that, immediately upon Frankie's arrival, is beset with the acts of a serial arsonist, preying upon summer homes (much like Frankie's family's.)
Sadly, the intrigue of who's burning these houses down, and why, is drowned out by snoozy back stories, one-D characters, insipid dialogue, and a syrupy romance (replete with a backdrop of the Aurora Borealis...in New Hampshire. Who knew?) Clunky, and sleep-inducing, in the extreme.
Sue Miller's The Arsonist, perhaps a little surprisingly, I found to be a spectacularly dull drama that just couldn't measure up to the strength of the title, cover art, or premise. The idea enticed me: An American woman Frankie Rowley, on break from her job of eradicating hunger in Africa in the 90's, comes back to her family's summer house in Pomeroy, New Hampshire, a town that, immediately upon Frankie's arrival, is beset with the acts of a serial arsonist, preying upon summer homes (much like Frankie's family's.)
Sadly, the intrigue of who's burning these houses down, and why, is drowned out by snoozy back stories, one-D characters, insipid dialogue, and a syrupy romance (replete with a backdrop of the Aurora Borealis...in New Hampshire. Who knew?) Clunky, and sleep-inducing, in the extreme.
June 18, 2014
Boy, I wanted to like this book. But I am abandoning it after 131 pages. 131 slow, tedious, boring pages. It's not that it's badly written, or that the premise isn't compelling...it's just that the author seems to be determined to document each and every movement or action performed by the protagonist. Here's an example about a trip to the market:
"The only tomatoes they had were hothouse, hard as apples, so Frankie chose cherry tomatoes. She put garlic into her basket, too, and lettuce, and onions, and potatoes. She brought all this to the table with the cash register, and the weather-worn youngish woman with lean, ropy arms emerging from her T-shirt helped her unpack it. She rant things up and put them into a brown paper bag."
Augh! I don't need to have lots of action in a book--beautiful language is enough. But this minute-by-minute account of mundane, irrelevant happenings is just not worth my time.
"The only tomatoes they had were hothouse, hard as apples, so Frankie chose cherry tomatoes. She put garlic into her basket, too, and lettuce, and onions, and potatoes. She brought all this to the table with the cash register, and the weather-worn youngish woman with lean, ropy arms emerging from her T-shirt helped her unpack it. She rant things up and put them into a brown paper bag."
Augh! I don't need to have lots of action in a book--beautiful language is enough. But this minute-by-minute account of mundane, irrelevant happenings is just not worth my time.
January 30, 2014
Although this story didn't end in just the way I wanted it to, it ended in a way that felt true. In fact, the entire book felt true. Life is messy, with emotional entanglements, disappointments, and joy. Sue Miller has a way of writing her characters so that all the messiness and glory of being human shines through. In addition to helping us understand people, The Arsonist also has enough plot to keep pages turning--a bit of mystery, suspense, and romance all rolled into one thoughtful storyline. Loved it.
October 16, 2017
This is how bad this book was for me. I had been reading it for the last two weeks during our 15 minute independent reading sessions in class. But imagine when I picked it up this morning and realized I was on chapter 13 and had little to no recollection of what actually transpired. What was even more amazing is that this book was brought in by a co-worker who read it before giving to me and she cannot remember what happens. Now that is an advertisment of caution!
April 13, 2014
A small town in New England, Frankie has returned after many years working in Africa, now in her forties she is looking for a sense of permanence. Her parents have retired and moved into the small town that they had previously only inhabited in summer. Many things are different, fires are being set that seem to be targeting only the homes of the summer people. Her parents are dealing with a big problem that may change the course of their lives. As the summer heats up so do the tensions in her family and town.
My first impression was how very realistic this book was, the people, the fears as people who never locked their doors before find themselves going to extreme measures. The family problem that causes so much anguish and introspection. Trying to find a fulfilling way forward, a new path when one is over forty. Summer people versus the people who live their all year long. What makes a home? Is it the place or people one is with. All against the background of the fires.
Even the ending is realistic even if not fully resolved. After all how many can say their lives are ever fully resolved at any point?
ARC from publisher
My first impression was how very realistic this book was, the people, the fears as people who never locked their doors before find themselves going to extreme measures. The family problem that causes so much anguish and introspection. Trying to find a fulfilling way forward, a new path when one is over forty. Summer people versus the people who live their all year long. What makes a home? Is it the place or people one is with. All against the background of the fires.
Even the ending is realistic even if not fully resolved. After all how many can say their lives are ever fully resolved at any point?
ARC from publisher
July 9, 2014
Sue Miller’s thoughtful, intense novels have always demonstrated that domestic fiction needn’t be domesticated. And lately, she’s shown that it needn’t be apolitical either. In “The Senator’s Wife” (2008), she explored the costs of being married to a philandering public servant. Her last book, “The Lake Shore Limited,” offered a psychologically profound response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Her new novel, “The Arsonist,” takes place far removed from national news or world conflicts, but it, too, reflects the most urgent matters of our time. In New Hampshire, where antique farms are separated by lichen-covered stone walls, she sets a muted story of class and terrorism. The result is an ambitious, big-issue novel that somehow fits convincingly amid two-lane roads and dairy cows.
This remote setting has drawn the heroine, Frankie Rowley, home from Africa. After 15 years, she’s exhausted by the moral calculus of relief work and brokenhearted by the end of a relationship with a married man. Craving time to recalibrate her life, Frankie imagines she’ll enjoy “an easy and very American happiness”: eating long meals with her retired parents and sleeping late in the bedroom “she’d had every summer since she was a child.”
But in the first paragraph, Miller begins to thwart those pastoral expectations. Jet-lagged from the transatlantic flight, Frankie takes a walk in the night and happens to see a car — what she thinks of later as the getaway car. The next morning, she and her parents learn that a neighboring house has been gutted by fire. And it’s just the first one. Over the summer, an arsonist incinerates more than a dozen houses in this small town — “a curious crime” — burning away a sense of tranquility and trust along with buildings and furniture.
Novels about kidnapped children or killer viruses may provoke some general low-level anxiety, but nothing will stoke terror in the hearts of wealthy, East Coast readers quite like this plot: It doesn’t take long for the residents of Miller’s Pomeroy, N.H., to realize that all the destroyed homes belong to summer people — tony visitors who take up lots of space in town for three months (and probably like to read sophisticated literary novels).
Miller isn’t dogmatic on this theme, and she ultimately leaves it unresolved, but she’s interested in the friction between modest folks who maintain the town and “chatty, self-assured summer people” who expect it to remain an accommodating setting for their leisure. The fires force everyone to consider “who owned the town and who merely used it.” Advised to put locks on the doors, one offended visitor says, “This is not why we come here.” Miller adds, “There was something threatening in this tonally, inflectively, as if to say, If you can’t manage this better, we won’t come here anymore.”
At a time when even mentioning the widening distance between the classes is considered an act of class warfare, it’s encouraging to watch Miller’s novel negotiate this awkward fact of American life. An older character in town who serves as a kind of sage offers a counterintuitive explanation for the fires — and the resentment that may be fueling them: “That expectation that we’ll all get along — that didn’t use to matter so much,” he says. “Because there was no such expectation. There was no social mixing. . . . We knew our place.” In other words, our pretense of egalitarianism is destined to aggravate tensions between groups that live very different lives.
That argument is complicated, though, by Frankie’s point of view. After years of working in some of the most desperate parts of Africa, she finds America a vast expanse of prosperity. “It all seemed criminally luxurious,” Miller writes. Tensions between townies and summer people in “this little, closed-in world” look silly after watching children die of starvation. But how long can Frankie burn with that bright blue flame of moral superiority? It’s a privilege, after all, to be able to obsess righteously about Big Important Problems. At 43, she’s begun to realize that her devotion to the fathomless crises of Africa serves as a kind of cowardly escape. Forced by a friend to articulate her restlessness, Frankie sputters, “I guess, I’ve come to feel — in Africa — that I’m . . . temporizing, I guess you could say. With my life.”
Even while the arsonist keeps striking in the background of this novel, we’re caught up in Frankie’s experiment with stability. Soon after she arrives home, she falls in love with Bud, the owner of the local newspaper. A transplant from the Washington bureau of the Boston Globe, Bud is a solid, immensely likable guy, but he, too, is wrestling with a sense of being suspended between worlds, and it’s not clear that he’ll be able to convince Frankie that a worthwhile life can be lived in the narrow confines of Pomeroy.
Miller has taken heat in the past for embellishing her stories with sweaty prose, and there are moments here when the romance feels hotter than the mystery, e.g.,“Frankie felt a weakness in her legs at the thought of everything they would do with each other, to each other, at the way in which their bodies belonged to each other.” But for the most part, Frankie’s relationship with Bud, which serves as the real focus of the story, is thoughtfully and maturely explored. There’s humor and real sweetness in this clumsy slow-dance of middle-aged dating.
Most affecting, though, is the portrayal of Frankie’s parents. Once again, as Miller did in “The Lake Shore Limited,” she explores the way illness strains a relationship and exposes cracks that happier times kept hidden. As Frankie’s father drifts further into dementia, her mother realizes that her loveless marriage is becoming a different kind of prison — one constructed of burden and guilt. And Frankie must figure out the ways her parents still need her, and don’t.
Set against the acts of a serial arsonist, which, in turn, are set against the attacks of African terrorists, these ordinary folks’ hopes and fears could seem small and petty, the kindling for some bitter satire about American self-absorption. But that’s the continuing miracle of Miller’s compelling storytelling: She knows these people matter, and as she moves gently from one character’s perspective to another, her sensitive delineation of their lives convinces us of that, too.
Originally published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
Her new novel, “The Arsonist,” takes place far removed from national news or world conflicts, but it, too, reflects the most urgent matters of our time. In New Hampshire, where antique farms are separated by lichen-covered stone walls, she sets a muted story of class and terrorism. The result is an ambitious, big-issue novel that somehow fits convincingly amid two-lane roads and dairy cows.
This remote setting has drawn the heroine, Frankie Rowley, home from Africa. After 15 years, she’s exhausted by the moral calculus of relief work and brokenhearted by the end of a relationship with a married man. Craving time to recalibrate her life, Frankie imagines she’ll enjoy “an easy and very American happiness”: eating long meals with her retired parents and sleeping late in the bedroom “she’d had every summer since she was a child.”
But in the first paragraph, Miller begins to thwart those pastoral expectations. Jet-lagged from the transatlantic flight, Frankie takes a walk in the night and happens to see a car — what she thinks of later as the getaway car. The next morning, she and her parents learn that a neighboring house has been gutted by fire. And it’s just the first one. Over the summer, an arsonist incinerates more than a dozen houses in this small town — “a curious crime” — burning away a sense of tranquility and trust along with buildings and furniture.
Novels about kidnapped children or killer viruses may provoke some general low-level anxiety, but nothing will stoke terror in the hearts of wealthy, East Coast readers quite like this plot: It doesn’t take long for the residents of Miller’s Pomeroy, N.H., to realize that all the destroyed homes belong to summer people — tony visitors who take up lots of space in town for three months (and probably like to read sophisticated literary novels).
Miller isn’t dogmatic on this theme, and she ultimately leaves it unresolved, but she’s interested in the friction between modest folks who maintain the town and “chatty, self-assured summer people” who expect it to remain an accommodating setting for their leisure. The fires force everyone to consider “who owned the town and who merely used it.” Advised to put locks on the doors, one offended visitor says, “This is not why we come here.” Miller adds, “There was something threatening in this tonally, inflectively, as if to say, If you can’t manage this better, we won’t come here anymore.”
At a time when even mentioning the widening distance between the classes is considered an act of class warfare, it’s encouraging to watch Miller’s novel negotiate this awkward fact of American life. An older character in town who serves as a kind of sage offers a counterintuitive explanation for the fires — and the resentment that may be fueling them: “That expectation that we’ll all get along — that didn’t use to matter so much,” he says. “Because there was no such expectation. There was no social mixing. . . . We knew our place.” In other words, our pretense of egalitarianism is destined to aggravate tensions between groups that live very different lives.
That argument is complicated, though, by Frankie’s point of view. After years of working in some of the most desperate parts of Africa, she finds America a vast expanse of prosperity. “It all seemed criminally luxurious,” Miller writes. Tensions between townies and summer people in “this little, closed-in world” look silly after watching children die of starvation. But how long can Frankie burn with that bright blue flame of moral superiority? It’s a privilege, after all, to be able to obsess righteously about Big Important Problems. At 43, she’s begun to realize that her devotion to the fathomless crises of Africa serves as a kind of cowardly escape. Forced by a friend to articulate her restlessness, Frankie sputters, “I guess, I’ve come to feel — in Africa — that I’m . . . temporizing, I guess you could say. With my life.”
Even while the arsonist keeps striking in the background of this novel, we’re caught up in Frankie’s experiment with stability. Soon after she arrives home, she falls in love with Bud, the owner of the local newspaper. A transplant from the Washington bureau of the Boston Globe, Bud is a solid, immensely likable guy, but he, too, is wrestling with a sense of being suspended between worlds, and it’s not clear that he’ll be able to convince Frankie that a worthwhile life can be lived in the narrow confines of Pomeroy.
Miller has taken heat in the past for embellishing her stories with sweaty prose, and there are moments here when the romance feels hotter than the mystery, e.g.,“Frankie felt a weakness in her legs at the thought of everything they would do with each other, to each other, at the way in which their bodies belonged to each other.” But for the most part, Frankie’s relationship with Bud, which serves as the real focus of the story, is thoughtfully and maturely explored. There’s humor and real sweetness in this clumsy slow-dance of middle-aged dating.
Most affecting, though, is the portrayal of Frankie’s parents. Once again, as Miller did in “The Lake Shore Limited,” she explores the way illness strains a relationship and exposes cracks that happier times kept hidden. As Frankie’s father drifts further into dementia, her mother realizes that her loveless marriage is becoming a different kind of prison — one constructed of burden and guilt. And Frankie must figure out the ways her parents still need her, and don’t.
Set against the acts of a serial arsonist, which, in turn, are set against the attacks of African terrorists, these ordinary folks’ hopes and fears could seem small and petty, the kindling for some bitter satire about American self-absorption. But that’s the continuing miracle of Miller’s compelling storytelling: She knows these people matter, and as she moves gently from one character’s perspective to another, her sensitive delineation of their lives convinces us of that, too.
Originally published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
December 30, 2016
Usually I'm not in the demographic to plaster a bevy of "Look at me, Mommy, I'm funny!" GIFs onto my book reviews, but while reading Sue Miller's pedestrian novel, I felt like The Arsonist was very worthy of taking such obnoxious liberties. So I'm going to do it here, for the first time ever on Goodreads—wow, it's hitting me now, my virginal nature to flashy showmanship is about to be vanquished!
As I began to read the opening areas of this tedious story, one specific scene from a much better creative work sprung to mind...
Dr. Watson enters the flat of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, only to be caught wholly off guard by his best friend's supremely erratic behavior when it pertains to his use of a handgun. The single word that Sherlock then exclaims to John as he sits so comfortably in his chair is EXACTLY what I felt while wading through the muck that is The Arsonist.
That, right there, is precisely what was going through my head as I read this ho-hum book.
I'm just blasé to its blandness. Ooh! Sweet sassy molassy, that's actually a better line than anything Sue threw in her plodder of a fictional chronicle!!
Two snowflakes given for not being entirely busted throughout, though. Oh, what's that? You thought I was going to go with a lone flake for shock jock's sake? No, I do have a heart as I cultivate, with gobs of compassion on its arterial plate, and I always crave to debate the coals I opt to rake.
#RhymeTime
"Whatever," I mutter meekly to all the men (and women) who don't really get this.
Pfft. F IT. This book doesn't even deserve these lines of my wit credit.
#WhattaSublimeRhymeTime
Hey! Maybe I'll go ahead and finish up this oh-so-detailed review with another GIF of Sherlock. Yeah, that sounds like a fabulous idea! I'll make it cohesive and relative to my previous feelings expressed, too. Here you all are. Thanks for reading. And don't read this book! It's bad for your health, imaginatively speaking/typing.
A little more advice directly below this sentence for every reader and writer out there:
Just catch a craze and pray to find some way to avoid the blasé, baybay.
#ChimeInOnMyRhymeTime
As I began to read the opening areas of this tedious story, one specific scene from a much better creative work sprung to mind...
Dr. Watson enters the flat of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, only to be caught wholly off guard by his best friend's supremely erratic behavior when it pertains to his use of a handgun. The single word that Sherlock then exclaims to John as he sits so comfortably in his chair is EXACTLY what I felt while wading through the muck that is The Arsonist.
That, right there, is precisely what was going through my head as I read this ho-hum book.
I'm just blasé to its blandness. Ooh! Sweet sassy molassy, that's actually a better line than anything Sue threw in her plodder of a fictional chronicle!!
Two snowflakes given for not being entirely busted throughout, though. Oh, what's that? You thought I was going to go with a lone flake for shock jock's sake? No, I do have a heart as I cultivate, with gobs of compassion on its arterial plate, and I always crave to debate the coals I opt to rake.
#RhymeTime
"Whatever," I mutter meekly to all the men (and women) who don't really get this.
Pfft. F IT. This book doesn't even deserve these lines of my wit credit.
#WhattaSublimeRhymeTime
Hey! Maybe I'll go ahead and finish up this oh-so-detailed review with another GIF of Sherlock. Yeah, that sounds like a fabulous idea! I'll make it cohesive and relative to my previous feelings expressed, too. Here you all are. Thanks for reading. And don't read this book! It's bad for your health, imaginatively speaking/typing.
A little more advice directly below this sentence for every reader and writer out there:
Just catch a craze and pray to find some way to avoid the blasé, baybay.
#ChimeInOnMyRhymeTime
March 15, 2019
I really wanted to love this book, it had so much potential! Frankie returns home from Africa to her parents’ house in a small New England town. Once a summer house, her parents are now living full time there. While Frankie reflects about a soured relationship and what she wants to do with the rest of her life, summer houses throughout town are being set on fire. Tensions heighten between wealthier summer people and the locals.
I liked so many elements of this ruminative novel, but many of them never fully gelled for me. The strange, uncomfortable developing relationships between the summer people and the locals was interesting. I wanted more. The arsons steadily build in terms of frequency and potential injury, but even that peters out, and I thought the resolution was a bit of a let down.
I’m a big fan of complicated relationships in books. I loved the friction between Frankie and her mother, Sylvia, with her father’s declining health working as a catalyst. But once again, I felt that there was too little. For all the fires and familial dynamics, there are a lot of scenes revolving around a brooding Frankie. It didn’t help that I liked Frankie less than both her parents. I also didn’t feel compelled over the big romance in the book.
Yet I do think this is a novel worth reading. It poses interesting questions, and the whole thing has a very cinematic feel.
I liked so many elements of this ruminative novel, but many of them never fully gelled for me. The strange, uncomfortable developing relationships between the summer people and the locals was interesting. I wanted more. The arsons steadily build in terms of frequency and potential injury, but even that peters out, and I thought the resolution was a bit of a let down.
I’m a big fan of complicated relationships in books. I loved the friction between Frankie and her mother, Sylvia, with her father’s declining health working as a catalyst. But once again, I felt that there was too little. For all the fires and familial dynamics, there are a lot of scenes revolving around a brooding Frankie. It didn’t help that I liked Frankie less than both her parents. I also didn’t feel compelled over the big romance in the book.
Yet I do think this is a novel worth reading. It poses interesting questions, and the whole thing has a very cinematic feel.
May 14, 2014
I won a free advanced copy of this book in a GoodReads sweepstakes, as part of the pre-publication publicity effort.
This book is very competently written and the reasons that it failed for me are particular to my own preferences. If this is a genre that one likes, I would not hesitate to recommend it as another decent example of the category.
However, I abandoned this book at the end of chapter 8, around page 120 of 300ish.
My basic problem with the book is that it is yet another story that I've already ready too many times -- suddenly restless middle-aged white woman of upper-middle class background, dealing with life and family (especially aging parents) and unexpected romance. And quite frankly, I just feel like this angst has been done and done and done.
The stakes are raised by the conceit of fires being lit around the community that result in houses being burned down.
Despite the thread of this mystery, I can't be bothered to find out whether (what a twist) the protagonist is the arsonist, or her father who is increasingly afflicted by what is likely Alzheimer's, or a "townie" year-round resident, or the protagonist's new beau or......
EDITED TO ADD: I meant to also say that I thought the observations about how the protagonist feels overwhelmed by the plethora of choices available to Americans rang very true, having heard several people I know who have served overseas in the Foreign Service or as aid workers make that same observation.
This book is very competently written and the reasons that it failed for me are particular to my own preferences. If this is a genre that one likes, I would not hesitate to recommend it as another decent example of the category.
However, I abandoned this book at the end of chapter 8, around page 120 of 300ish.
My basic problem with the book is that it is yet another story that I've already ready too many times -- suddenly restless middle-aged white woman of upper-middle class background, dealing with life and family (especially aging parents) and unexpected romance. And quite frankly, I just feel like this angst has been done and done and done.
The stakes are raised by the conceit of fires being lit around the community that result in houses being burned down.
Despite the thread of this mystery, I can't be bothered to find out whether (what a twist) the protagonist is the arsonist, or her father who is increasingly afflicted by what is likely Alzheimer's, or a "townie" year-round resident, or the protagonist's new beau or......
EDITED TO ADD: I meant to also say that I thought the observations about how the protagonist feels overwhelmed by the plethora of choices available to Americans rang very true, having heard several people I know who have served overseas in the Foreign Service or as aid workers make that same observation.
September 23, 2015
This is an uncomplicated novel, but one that felt realistic and true to life. The novel follows the lives during one summer of various members of the community in a small town in New Hampshire. Above all the novel's themes are finding a sense of identity, a purpose in life and discovering the meaning of "home". A few of the characters are unhappy, or at least unsure, about the paths their lives are taking.
One of these characters includes Frankie, a forty-something year old, who has just returned from a career in aids work in Kenya. She's unsure on whether she ever wants to return to that life, but still wants to "make a difference". At times, Frankie is certainly a self-centered character, treating those around her unfairly as she strives for a better or more meaningful life.
Meanwhile, Frankie's mother, Sylvia, is tormented by her husband deteriorating health, but also by guilt as she feels that she will only care for her husband in his ageing state due to a sense of a duty rather than any true feelings of love. This is a moving subplot that questions whether a relationship can be made better this late on.
All these personal struggles are a set against a backdrop class conflict between members of the small town community: the "summer people" (temporary, wealthy and privileged resident i.e. those who "have") and the permanent residents (i.e. those who "don't have"). The novel questions whether it is right to demand more from life, and suggests that although life may never be perfect, sometimes it is important to appreciate what you do the have. Nevertheless, the ending, while hopeful, shows that some people may never be completely satisfied and perhaps this leads to a fairly unresolved conclusion, but then who has ever found complete closure at every point of their lives?
The arsons add a little unease to an otherwise sleepy rural town and symbolise a connecting theme to each of the personal dramas faced by the characters, but the arsonist is not the main focus of the novel, despite its title. Don't go into this expecting a mystery and to find out who is behind the crimes, as that really isn't what the book is about and you may be left disappointed.
However, if you are interested in domestic fiction that prioritises slowly, but well-developed characters over an intricate plot, then The Arsonist could work for you.
One of these characters includes Frankie, a forty-something year old, who has just returned from a career in aids work in Kenya. She's unsure on whether she ever wants to return to that life, but still wants to "make a difference". At times, Frankie is certainly a self-centered character, treating those around her unfairly as she strives for a better or more meaningful life.
Meanwhile, Frankie's mother, Sylvia, is tormented by her husband deteriorating health, but also by guilt as she feels that she will only care for her husband in his ageing state due to a sense of a duty rather than any true feelings of love. This is a moving subplot that questions whether a relationship can be made better this late on.
All these personal struggles are a set against a backdrop class conflict between members of the small town community: the "summer people" (temporary, wealthy and privileged resident i.e. those who "have") and the permanent residents (i.e. those who "don't have"). The novel questions whether it is right to demand more from life, and suggests that although life may never be perfect, sometimes it is important to appreciate what you do the have. Nevertheless, the ending, while hopeful, shows that some people may never be completely satisfied and perhaps this leads to a fairly unresolved conclusion, but then who has ever found complete closure at every point of their lives?
The arsons add a little unease to an otherwise sleepy rural town and symbolise a connecting theme to each of the personal dramas faced by the characters, but the arsonist is not the main focus of the novel, despite its title. Don't go into this expecting a mystery and to find out who is behind the crimes, as that really isn't what the book is about and you may be left disappointed.
However, if you are interested in domestic fiction that prioritises slowly, but well-developed characters over an intricate plot, then The Arsonist could work for you.
June 29, 2014
The main character was Frankie, but it was her mother, Sylvia, whose journey was more compelling to me. Sylvia's doubts about her competence as a mother, as a wife, as a woman who had sublimated her personal drives for those of her family, primarily her self-involved husband, was perceptive and moving. The 'arsons' of the title were a vehicle for propelling a story, and for introducing relateable and quite interesting characters. The relationships had us meeting Alfie, the retired academic husband now verging on dementia, Bud, love-interest but more interesting than simply that, and Frankie, of course, and her pervasive ambivalence about commitment were adequately told.
August 22, 2014
Ron Charles of The Washington Post says this story was “told with stark honesty.” True. William Pritchard of the Chicago Tribune says “… expert at making narrative sense out of human relationships.” True. I disagree, however, with all other back-cover endorsements of Sue Miller’s The Arsonist.
The Arsonist has a compelling plot on four levels: (1) Who is setting all those houses on fire, and why? (2) What will Frankie decide to do with her life, and what will happen between her and Bud? (3) What will happen with Frankie’s parents, Sylvia and Alfie, now that Alfie’s dementia has been diagnosed? (4) Will 40-something Frankie’s homecoming reveal and heal family hurts? I was on the edge of my chair for the first 233 pages, and when I finished page 303, I was still on the edge of my chair with almost the same amount of tension as I’d felt earlier—plus profound emptiness. Because Miller had so meaningfully parsed Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, and Bud’s thoughts, I had expected a more meaningful denouement; I was disappointed.
Like an eagle, this story gripped me in its talons and held me captive as we soared and dipped in and out of Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, Alfie’s, and Bud’s lives in Pomeroy, New Hampshire, for 233 pages. Then for the last 70 pages, the eagle abruptly dropped me into a thicket behind their house—where I was left to wonder what happened. I really felt let down by this novel.
Its pacing may have been partly to blame. The reader gets acquainted slowly with each main character; Miller’s pencil traces each crevice of Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, and Bud’s brains, exploring, explaining—their thoughts detailed narratives. For example, “Upstairs, she lay in her bed in the darkening room, thinking again about what had seemed like Alfie’s confusion … She thought about the tea, about the carful of boys and the discomfort they’d brought. She thought of Bud Jacobs’s face on the opposite side of the burned-out house and the quick sense of sexual possibility she’d felt.” [page 53] Then suddenly, as if to just get the novel over with, Miller’s pencil leaps out of everyone’s brains and ahead into a time warp of generalities like “And sometimes, even years later, when … Bud would be aware of feeling …” [page 300] First we get minute-by-minute color commentary; then we get years later?
In real life, our subplots rarely neatly wrap up. Every day—and over the years those days add up to—we question, we explore, we doubt, we decide, we move forward, backward, sideways, we hope, we despair, we experiment. Life is ongoing. This novel’s structure, and even the choice of ordinary small town dailiness, reflects that well. That Frankie, Bud, and Sylvia find meaning in different things is presented well. The unsettling prediagnosis emotions in families of someone with Alzheimer’s are brilliantly shown in Alfie’s family. But the Sylvia-Alfie story just drops out of sight toward the end of the book. Plus, Miller essentially exacerbates the tragedy of the disease; she points out the painfulness of a person’s former self disappearing as dementia progresses—and then she causes actual disappearance of this dear person by writing Alfie out of the story.
Also toward the end, more detail is given about Bud’s future than about Frankie’s. Even though the book’s chapters had changed point of view throughout, I considered Frankie the “main” character. If she wasn’t the main character, she was at least the pivotal one. I wanted her to make the relational connections she longed for, but if I interpret the book’s sketchy time-warp ending correctly, she had just been toying. The connections she chose fell far short, nihilistically short, of the ones she longed for, in my opinion.
To end on a positive note, I’ll expand on my opening paragraph. I truly enjoyed Miller’s “making narrative sense out of human relationships” and her “stark honesty.” She presented the small town of Pomeroy and its key players colorfully and realistically. Each of the three main characters sought meaning in his or her life, love, and a sense of home. The concept of home was a thought-provoking theme for me. I also liked flashbacks that revealed the basis for family dynamics.
The Arsonist has a compelling plot on four levels: (1) Who is setting all those houses on fire, and why? (2) What will Frankie decide to do with her life, and what will happen between her and Bud? (3) What will happen with Frankie’s parents, Sylvia and Alfie, now that Alfie’s dementia has been diagnosed? (4) Will 40-something Frankie’s homecoming reveal and heal family hurts? I was on the edge of my chair for the first 233 pages, and when I finished page 303, I was still on the edge of my chair with almost the same amount of tension as I’d felt earlier—plus profound emptiness. Because Miller had so meaningfully parsed Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, and Bud’s thoughts, I had expected a more meaningful denouement; I was disappointed.
Like an eagle, this story gripped me in its talons and held me captive as we soared and dipped in and out of Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, Alfie’s, and Bud’s lives in Pomeroy, New Hampshire, for 233 pages. Then for the last 70 pages, the eagle abruptly dropped me into a thicket behind their house—where I was left to wonder what happened. I really felt let down by this novel.
Its pacing may have been partly to blame. The reader gets acquainted slowly with each main character; Miller’s pencil traces each crevice of Frankie’s, Sylvia’s, and Bud’s brains, exploring, explaining—their thoughts detailed narratives. For example, “Upstairs, she lay in her bed in the darkening room, thinking again about what had seemed like Alfie’s confusion … She thought about the tea, about the carful of boys and the discomfort they’d brought. She thought of Bud Jacobs’s face on the opposite side of the burned-out house and the quick sense of sexual possibility she’d felt.” [page 53] Then suddenly, as if to just get the novel over with, Miller’s pencil leaps out of everyone’s brains and ahead into a time warp of generalities like “And sometimes, even years later, when … Bud would be aware of feeling …” [page 300] First we get minute-by-minute color commentary; then we get years later?
In real life, our subplots rarely neatly wrap up. Every day—and over the years those days add up to—we question, we explore, we doubt, we decide, we move forward, backward, sideways, we hope, we despair, we experiment. Life is ongoing. This novel’s structure, and even the choice of ordinary small town dailiness, reflects that well. That Frankie, Bud, and Sylvia find meaning in different things is presented well. The unsettling prediagnosis emotions in families of someone with Alzheimer’s are brilliantly shown in Alfie’s family. But the Sylvia-Alfie story just drops out of sight toward the end of the book. Plus, Miller essentially exacerbates the tragedy of the disease; she points out the painfulness of a person’s former self disappearing as dementia progresses—and then she causes actual disappearance of this dear person by writing Alfie out of the story.
Also toward the end, more detail is given about Bud’s future than about Frankie’s. Even though the book’s chapters had changed point of view throughout, I considered Frankie the “main” character. If she wasn’t the main character, she was at least the pivotal one. I wanted her to make the relational connections she longed for, but if I interpret the book’s sketchy time-warp ending correctly, she had just been toying. The connections she chose fell far short, nihilistically short, of the ones she longed for, in my opinion.
To end on a positive note, I’ll expand on my opening paragraph. I truly enjoyed Miller’s “making narrative sense out of human relationships” and her “stark honesty.” She presented the small town of Pomeroy and its key players colorfully and realistically. Each of the three main characters sought meaning in his or her life, love, and a sense of home. The concept of home was a thought-provoking theme for me. I also liked flashbacks that revealed the basis for family dynamics.
September 8, 2014
I hate to be a curmudgeon, but boy, was this book a disappointment. The characters were shallow and some seemed totally pointless. The plot was disjointed with themes that had nothing to do with the arson investigation I thought that the book was supposed to be about. I muddled through because the reader on the audio was excellent; had it been a print book, I would have closed it after the first couple of chapters. There was unnecessary foul language and the crude descriptions of sex scenes seemed to be completely irrelevant to the storyline. The author even tried to incorporate politics with some idle mention of Clinton, Monica Lewinsky and an attack on the embassy in Nairobi; neither of the themes were developed, and they had no real bearing on anything. In the end I wondered, who was her audience, or rather what kind of an audience was she now trying to attract? Surely it wasn’t the same one that read her previous books. My kind of reader doesn’t need to know if the character “stopped to take a piss” or has a “hard-on”. Why was the smutty language even necessary?
Basically, the story is about a family, Sylvia, the mother; Alfie, the father; and Frankie, the daughter. Frankie, 43, has lived in Kenya for the last 15 years employed as an aide worker. She is unmarried and fairly wanton in her ways. Most of the book describes the fact that she relished her life and freedom in Africa, was very dedicated to helping the people there, and she slept around with several available men. Her mother and father had recently retired and moved to her mother’s childhood vacation home in a very quiet town in New Hampshire. When Frankie decided to take a sabbatical, to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she returned there, and within hours of her arrival, an arsonist hit the scene. During the ensuing weeks, she met Bud, the editor of the local newspaper and had an affair with him. At the same time, she discovered that her father was having a problem with his memory, was having hallucinations, and was sometimes disoriented and confused. Her mother was not sure she could handle her future as his caregiver. There were few resources to help her in their small community.
I kept asking myself, what is this story about? Where is it going? For me, it went pretty much nowhere. I didn’t like Frankie, and she was the main character. Although she participated in an entirely altruistic profession, she was flippant in her own life, almost unable to make any real, lasting attachments. Furthermore, she never seemed to grow out of the habit of treating people dismissively. In summary, the book is about several unsatisfying love affairs, an inconclusive arson investigation, and a thin exploration of diseases affecting the mind and memory. Mostly, it seemed to be about Frankie’s confusion about her own needs, which I don’t believe were ever fully realized.
Basically, the story is about a family, Sylvia, the mother; Alfie, the father; and Frankie, the daughter. Frankie, 43, has lived in Kenya for the last 15 years employed as an aide worker. She is unmarried and fairly wanton in her ways. Most of the book describes the fact that she relished her life and freedom in Africa, was very dedicated to helping the people there, and she slept around with several available men. Her mother and father had recently retired and moved to her mother’s childhood vacation home in a very quiet town in New Hampshire. When Frankie decided to take a sabbatical, to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she returned there, and within hours of her arrival, an arsonist hit the scene. During the ensuing weeks, she met Bud, the editor of the local newspaper and had an affair with him. At the same time, she discovered that her father was having a problem with his memory, was having hallucinations, and was sometimes disoriented and confused. Her mother was not sure she could handle her future as his caregiver. There were few resources to help her in their small community.
I kept asking myself, what is this story about? Where is it going? For me, it went pretty much nowhere. I didn’t like Frankie, and she was the main character. Although she participated in an entirely altruistic profession, she was flippant in her own life, almost unable to make any real, lasting attachments. Furthermore, she never seemed to grow out of the habit of treating people dismissively. In summary, the book is about several unsatisfying love affairs, an inconclusive arson investigation, and a thin exploration of diseases affecting the mind and memory. Mostly, it seemed to be about Frankie’s confusion about her own needs, which I don’t believe were ever fully realized.
July 14, 2014
The title of this one is a bit misleading. There is a subplot of an arsonist terrorizing a small town (which doesn't have a real resolution), and that's the backdrop. However, the main story is really about 43 year old Frankie coming back from her work in Africa and figuring out what she wants to do with her life (local newspaper owner Bud becomes her love interest) as well as her mother Sylvia's struggles with her ailing husband.
And in that paragraph I have literally summarized the whole book. I enjoy Sue Miller's writing, but I find that I'm not patient enough for the very slow pace. I like character novels and don't ask for a tremendous amount of plot, and it DOES take place in the summer in a small town, but good grief was it slow and rather uninteresting.
Good writing, though, so I don't want to give it 2 stars. And she does touch on bigger themes that might be good book club discussions.
One thing that I found fascinating: Bud did everything at his local newspaper. He owned it, wrote the stories, photographed the pictures, worked with advertisers, did the typesetting, assembled the circulars into it, and delivered papers. Really?! Or does one person really do EVERYthing when you own a local newspaper?
And in that paragraph I have literally summarized the whole book. I enjoy Sue Miller's writing, but I find that I'm not patient enough for the very slow pace. I like character novels and don't ask for a tremendous amount of plot, and it DOES take place in the summer in a small town, but good grief was it slow and rather uninteresting.
Good writing, though, so I don't want to give it 2 stars. And she does touch on bigger themes that might be good book club discussions.
One thing that I found fascinating: Bud did everything at his local newspaper. He owned it, wrote the stories, photographed the pictures, worked with advertisers, did the typesetting, assembled the circulars into it, and delivered papers. Really?! Or does one person really do EVERYthing when you own a local newspaper?
October 20, 2014
Author Sue Miller's latest novel takes place in the New Hampshire village of Pomeroy. Frankie Rowley, a middle aged woman, had been working in East Africa as a relief worker for fifteen tears. Frankie, feeling burned out... perhaps by the intensity of the needs of the people she encountered and the seeming fruitlessness of her efforts or perhaps by a string of disastrous, meaningless love affairs... returns to her parents' home in Pomeroy. Frankie's parents , Sylvia and Alfie, have recently retired from their jobs as college professors and have relocated to their summer home in Pomeroy. Upon her arrival , Frankie becomes aware of a series of arsons which are occurring .. someone is torching the homes of the summer residents in this sleepy little town.
Although the title of this book leads you to believe that the story somehow centers around the arson activity, the arsons simply provide a backdrop to the unfolding drama which centers around the Rowley family. The arsons DO act as a sort of plot device.... ultimately bringing Frankie together with the new owner and operator of the local newspaper ... Bud Jacobs. If you are a regular reader of Sue Miller's novels, you will recognize that 'The Arsonist' has a theme familiar to the theme in many of her other novels.... the relationships between family members with all of their nuances and complexities. This story paints a picture of the marital relationship between Sylvia and Alfie. Alfie is struggling with some very difficult and debilitating health problems; and Sylvia is uncertain of her ability to care for her husband in the long term... or even if she WANTS to care for him at all. Frankie, as she becomes more aware of her parents' difficulties is uncertain of what HER role should be.... and this uncertainty is complicated by her general dissatisfaction with and her bewilderment over her OWN life's direction and purpose.
Perhaps I have read far too many stories about people engulfed in their mid-life crises and I have become impatient with that particular plot line but this story proved to be disappointing to me. Although I have been a fan of Ms. Miller's writing ..... she typically creates characters who are sympathetic and whose life stories and dilemmas are understandable and relatable ... in this particular story , however, I found the characters to be whiny and unlikable. I found myself thinking (more than once) ,"just get over yourselves and make a decision.. ANY decision... and get on with things." Perhaps I was expecting this story to be more of a mystery .... an arson mystery involving the residents of Pomeroy and when that aspect went basically undeveloped and then was hurriedly resolved without real or logical explanation, I felt let down. In the end, this book was unfortunately disappointing.
I would give this book 2.5 stars.
Although the title of this book leads you to believe that the story somehow centers around the arson activity, the arsons simply provide a backdrop to the unfolding drama which centers around the Rowley family. The arsons DO act as a sort of plot device.... ultimately bringing Frankie together with the new owner and operator of the local newspaper ... Bud Jacobs. If you are a regular reader of Sue Miller's novels, you will recognize that 'The Arsonist' has a theme familiar to the theme in many of her other novels.... the relationships between family members with all of their nuances and complexities. This story paints a picture of the marital relationship between Sylvia and Alfie. Alfie is struggling with some very difficult and debilitating health problems; and Sylvia is uncertain of her ability to care for her husband in the long term... or even if she WANTS to care for him at all. Frankie, as she becomes more aware of her parents' difficulties is uncertain of what HER role should be.... and this uncertainty is complicated by her general dissatisfaction with and her bewilderment over her OWN life's direction and purpose.
Perhaps I have read far too many stories about people engulfed in their mid-life crises and I have become impatient with that particular plot line but this story proved to be disappointing to me. Although I have been a fan of Ms. Miller's writing ..... she typically creates characters who are sympathetic and whose life stories and dilemmas are understandable and relatable ... in this particular story , however, I found the characters to be whiny and unlikable. I found myself thinking (more than once) ,"just get over yourselves and make a decision.. ANY decision... and get on with things." Perhaps I was expecting this story to be more of a mystery .... an arson mystery involving the residents of Pomeroy and when that aspect went basically undeveloped and then was hurriedly resolved without real or logical explanation, I felt let down. In the end, this book was unfortunately disappointing.
I would give this book 2.5 stars.
March 18, 2020
A real snooze fest, the main character's is suffering a mid-life crisis and we learn her mother is unhappily married to an old professor, whom she suspects may be experiencing dementia. The main character seems really self-absorbed and seems to flit from one man to another, never settling down. She is portrayed as rather flat in characterization.
I listened to about 3 hours of the 10 hr. Audio book. I don't really care about the characters or their neighborhood.
I listened to about 3 hours of the 10 hr. Audio book. I don't really care about the characters or their neighborhood.
June 4, 2021
4 STARS
This book has a little bit of everything: romance, mystery, medical drama and a town full of wonderful characters! It's so fun to go back and read older books of a beloved author
This book has a little bit of everything: romance, mystery, medical drama and a town full of wonderful characters! It's so fun to go back and read older books of a beloved author
February 24, 2016
It seems to me that if you title a book The Arsonist, it should have something to do with, well, an arsonist. Unfortunately this book does not. It is actually a romance novel posing as what is described on the back cover of the edition I read as "A gripping new novel . . . about the tensions that are ignited between summer people and locals when a wave of fires spreads through a small New England town." In reality, the part of the book dealing with arson is merely a tiny subplot that acts as a backdrop for the romance between an unfocused young woman and a small town newspaper publisher. About 60% of the book deals with this romance. There is an interesting story line involving the woman's father who is descending into senility, but, sadly, it is never fully developed. Overall the book is NOT what you'd expect - a psychological thriller about arson and arsonists.
There are some good scenes here, but much of the writing is sloppy, and I know Sue Miller can do better. The characters are flat and predictable, the narrative disjointed. Miller missed the mark on this one. An unfortunate disappointment.
There are some good scenes here, but much of the writing is sloppy, and I know Sue Miller can do better. The characters are flat and predictable, the narrative disjointed. Miller missed the mark on this one. An unfortunate disappointment.
July 14, 2014
Kept my interest however, I hate it when a book leaves things to the reader to conclude.
July 28, 2017
Wonderful exposition, but…
I opened this novel to be instantly reminded how good a writer Sue Miller is. She is a master of exposition. With consummate ease, she drew me smoothly into the life of her protagonist, Frankie Rowley. Forty-three, and having spent most of her adult like as an aid worker in East Africa, Frankie comes back to a small town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where her parents live. As Miller works without complication or rush, we learn about Frankie, we learn about her parents, we learn about the town of Pomeroy, we hear about the night-time burning of an unoccupied home, and we meet the owner of Pomeroy's weekly paper, Bud Jacobs. And we care. It is such a pleasure to read a novelist so completely in command of her medium.
There are three main stories, I would say. The most important is the one of Frankie herself, who is aware of how transitory her life has been up to now. Knowing that she cannot stay in Africa, she is not sure either that she can settle down in rural New England. So her attraction to Bud Jacobs, who as a recent fugitive from the Washington press corps has indeed begun to settle down in the country, has the potential to bring her to some hard decisions. A second thread is the life of Frankie's parents: her mother Sylvia and her father Alfie, a retired professor who is just beginning to show signs of dementia. And the third thread is the arson of the title.
Yet I am not sure why Miller chose that title, despite the epidemic of house-burnings that provide a narrative thread on which to hang much of the rest. But by no means the major thread. I suspect her main reason is, once more, expository: it provides an excellent way to lay bare the small-town nature of the community, and the potential for conflict between its summer people and the year-rounders. But as a device to tie up the whole story, no. Arson, we are told, is a very difficult crime for which to obtain convictions; even though a suspect is arrested, there is little sense of closure.
Though closure, in the traditional sense, is not what Miller is after. I certainly admire her reluctance to have storybook endings; each of the three outcomes was realistic and believable. But they didn't rely upon one another to get there, and what happened at the end was not necessarily prefigured by what developed in the middle. I felt this especially with Frankie, who claimed my interest in the early pages and almost hooked me again at the end. But as her romance with Bud takes its obvious course, she stagnates on a plateau of satisfied sex scenes, while nothing much is happening around her—or, more importantly, in her mind. Sue Miller may be superb at writing exposition but, in this novel at least, she cannot sustain it with equally compelling development.
I opened this novel to be instantly reminded how good a writer Sue Miller is. She is a master of exposition. With consummate ease, she drew me smoothly into the life of her protagonist, Frankie Rowley. Forty-three, and having spent most of her adult like as an aid worker in East Africa, Frankie comes back to a small town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where her parents live. As Miller works without complication or rush, we learn about Frankie, we learn about her parents, we learn about the town of Pomeroy, we hear about the night-time burning of an unoccupied home, and we meet the owner of Pomeroy's weekly paper, Bud Jacobs. And we care. It is such a pleasure to read a novelist so completely in command of her medium.
There are three main stories, I would say. The most important is the one of Frankie herself, who is aware of how transitory her life has been up to now. Knowing that she cannot stay in Africa, she is not sure either that she can settle down in rural New England. So her attraction to Bud Jacobs, who as a recent fugitive from the Washington press corps has indeed begun to settle down in the country, has the potential to bring her to some hard decisions. A second thread is the life of Frankie's parents: her mother Sylvia and her father Alfie, a retired professor who is just beginning to show signs of dementia. And the third thread is the arson of the title.
Yet I am not sure why Miller chose that title, despite the epidemic of house-burnings that provide a narrative thread on which to hang much of the rest. But by no means the major thread. I suspect her main reason is, once more, expository: it provides an excellent way to lay bare the small-town nature of the community, and the potential for conflict between its summer people and the year-rounders. But as a device to tie up the whole story, no. Arson, we are told, is a very difficult crime for which to obtain convictions; even though a suspect is arrested, there is little sense of closure.
Though closure, in the traditional sense, is not what Miller is after. I certainly admire her reluctance to have storybook endings; each of the three outcomes was realistic and believable. But they didn't rely upon one another to get there, and what happened at the end was not necessarily prefigured by what developed in the middle. I felt this especially with Frankie, who claimed my interest in the early pages and almost hooked me again at the end. But as her romance with Bud takes its obvious course, she stagnates on a plateau of satisfied sex scenes, while nothing much is happening around her—or, more importantly, in her mind. Sue Miller may be superb at writing exposition but, in this novel at least, she cannot sustain it with equally compelling development.
February 4, 2016
The term “Domestic Fiction” is a bit of a loaded term these days, often in a derogatory sense. When applied to The Arsonist I mean the definition in its truest sense: “novels that are usually home-centric and focused on the relationships within a (functional or dysfunctional) family during a single generation.” The term can be applied to Sue Miller’s novel yet I found (and have found previously) something more - a sense of the rhythm of a character’s life.
It is a hard thing to actually capture - this rhythm but the reader is left with a real sense of having lived that character’s life and this is a rare thing. Of course, by necessity, the novel does include a lot of the everyday. For instance arriving at your parent’s holiday house or even a place infrequently visited:
“The air, when Frankie stepped out of the car, was cooler here. Was better, she thought, and remembered that she had always thought this, even as a child. It had been magic then, to arrive from where they were calling home that year. To feel the gift of some cleaner, finer life beginning. She breathed it in now.”
Frankie an aid worker has returned from Africa and is staying with her parents in their once holiday home which is now their permanent home. On the night of her arrival the first of many house fires occurs in the area. Who is to blame and why are only the summer people being targeted?
I was intrigued of course by the question - who is lighting the fires but what I really enjoyed about this novel was the quiet moments, the everyday moments. Here is Frankie on the porch:
“They sat in the old Adirondack chairs facing the distant blue hills. The nearer hills were green. She was aware, suddenly of birdsong everywhere and, somewhere off in the distance, a steady hum, a motor - someone haying or brush hogging. This was almost a constant here, she realised abruptly. The sound of some else working - the background noise of summer life.”
The Arsonist is made up of a lot of such moments. For me as a reader it works. I had the sense of what it was like to return home after a long absence, to know a childhood that included frequent visits to the summer place, the feeling of growing up with a slightly difficult mother and also the realisation that something is not right with her father on this most recent trip.
With the slow pace of the novel you absorb a lot of the above without even realising it, becoming attuned to the details and pace of other lives. A gentle, perceptive novel.
It is a hard thing to actually capture - this rhythm but the reader is left with a real sense of having lived that character’s life and this is a rare thing. Of course, by necessity, the novel does include a lot of the everyday. For instance arriving at your parent’s holiday house or even a place infrequently visited:
“The air, when Frankie stepped out of the car, was cooler here. Was better, she thought, and remembered that she had always thought this, even as a child. It had been magic then, to arrive from where they were calling home that year. To feel the gift of some cleaner, finer life beginning. She breathed it in now.”
Frankie an aid worker has returned from Africa and is staying with her parents in their once holiday home which is now their permanent home. On the night of her arrival the first of many house fires occurs in the area. Who is to blame and why are only the summer people being targeted?
I was intrigued of course by the question - who is lighting the fires but what I really enjoyed about this novel was the quiet moments, the everyday moments. Here is Frankie on the porch:
“They sat in the old Adirondack chairs facing the distant blue hills. The nearer hills were green. She was aware, suddenly of birdsong everywhere and, somewhere off in the distance, a steady hum, a motor - someone haying or brush hogging. This was almost a constant here, she realised abruptly. The sound of some else working - the background noise of summer life.”
The Arsonist is made up of a lot of such moments. For me as a reader it works. I had the sense of what it was like to return home after a long absence, to know a childhood that included frequent visits to the summer place, the feeling of growing up with a slightly difficult mother and also the realisation that something is not right with her father on this most recent trip.
With the slow pace of the novel you absorb a lot of the above without even realising it, becoming attuned to the details and pace of other lives. A gentle, perceptive novel.
June 24, 2014
The idea of home, the undeniable feeling of belonging and being truly comfortable, is a common theme in novels. In these novels, as in life, home is usually linked to family or a group of individuals, often people who have shared a common history and therefore memories…and this is usually where things get mucky. The accomplished author Sue Miller explores these themes in her latest novel, The Arsonist. After working in Africa for fifteen years Frankie Rowley returns to the summer home her parents have recently retired to in the small town of Pomeroy, New Hampshire. Feeling unmoored and unsure of her future Frankie begins to witness the rapid decline of her beloved father, and in turn begins to perceive her mother as someone other than the person she always understood her to be. One Frankie’s first night back one of the unoccupied homes of the summer residents burns under suspicious circumstances. And then another burns. And then another. Soon the entire town is speculating on the cause of the fires. The social fault lines of the “regulars” and the “summer people” begin to show signs of fracture and nearly everyone is forced to examine their reasons for living in Pomeroy. Frankie begins a tentative relationship with the editor of the local paper, Bud Jacobs, a former political journalist and recent resident of Pomeroy, and soon she and the townspeople are questioning not only who could be setting the fires but also who has a claim on the land, which residents really belong in Pomeroy, and what it takes to make someplace a home. Deeply moving and thought provoking Miller demonstrates a keen ability to delve into the psyche and emotions of her characters. The Arsonist should not be missed.
August 2, 2014
It's hard, although not impossible, for me to like a book when I don't particularly like any of the characters. I think the only character I really liked was Pete, a retired newspaper publisher, and a minor character. Normally I like Sue Miller's books and get on the library's waiting list as soon as the book is published. I almost gave up on this one because it just didn't hold my interest until the last quarter of the book. That's a long time to read without being engaged. And I do wish that a lot of the incidents occurring in that last part of the book had been better resolved. I would love to discuss this with a book group because I think it would reveal too much were I to go into more detail in a review. That being said, it may seem like I'm contradicting myself when I say that I did like that there was a certain amount of ambiguity regarding one particular thread. There was a lot going on in the book - the search for the arsonist, of course. But there was a retired professor's descent in to the dementia that comes with Alzheimer's and a 43-year-old woman's re-evaluation of her life. All interesting topics, but just not that interesting in this book.
July 2, 2014
I found the ending of this one by Sue Miller pretty unsatisfying (and I can't say why or I would ruin it for other readers), but other parts of it were reliably Sue Milleresque enough to make me happy. I would probably do 3.5 stars if that were an option. One thing I love about her is that she looks at the unpleasant aspects of our relationships and feelings that don't often find expression in domestic fiction about women: wives who stopped loving their husbands but stay married to them anyway; mothers who don't like their children all that much; people who cheat on their spouses but aren't "bad people." Human beings, in other words, not just idealized "mothers" and "wives." I also liked that this story explored (though not nearly as much as it could have) the relations between summer people and year-round residents in a New England village. This is a world with which I have some familiarity and while her village feels very different from the one I know, the class dynamics were interesting. She could have done more there, I thought.
November 24, 2014
A love story needs attractive lovers, because otherwise it might as well be nonfiction, or "Shrek". In this book, I tried to imagine Franchesca Rowley as some unique kind of beauty but the author kept adding details to destroy my image. She has milk white skin covered with freckles and red hair that is always an uncontrollable mass------okay, maybe she could be a different kind of beauty. But wait, Bud falls in love with the gap between her two front teeth and describes her as having a wide "bottom". I started picturing Honey Boo Boo's mom. Yikes!
May 12, 2014
It has been a while since I read Sue Miller. And in the meantime I have read sooo many mysteries/crime fiction. Maybe that's why this book seemed to fade away rather than end. Sylvia & Alfie rang true...dealing with the onset of dementia and the realization that love had not lasted. But Frankie's unwillingness to commit didn't make emotional sense. And the ending made her choices even more inexplicable. I just came away disappointed and uncertain what I was supposed to take away from the book.
October 13, 2014
just felt that miller had a good idea for a novel but sadly failed to deliver as started well and faded away as the book went along and had so much potential when looking at relationships and lost of memory or belonging to somewhere
October 3, 2016
Listening to this as an audiobook it was excruciatingly slow and detailed. I think it's probably a very good book but not on audio.
May 3, 2019
DNF.
This review speaks only to the audio version of “The Arsonist”, by Sue Miller (narrated by Sue Miller, published by Random House Audio).
The small town of Pomeroy, home to “summer people” and long-time residents, is plagued by mysterious fires, assumed to be arson………..
Frankie Rowley comes home after years of working for non-profits around the world, most recently in Africa. She struggles to fit into the life she used to know………
Syliva Rowley and her husband, Alfie, are struggling to deal with Alfie’s recent bouts of memory loss. Sylivia is exhausted, Alfie is frustrated, and they both seek answers………..
Ed is new in town, moving to Pomeroy to take up residence as head reporter of the local newspaper. When the fires start, Ed is quickly swept up in the arson investigation. But then he meets Frankie Rowley, and soon he is swept up in something else altogether………..
This novel is about all of these things. On their own, they are intriguing, but none of the plot points are focused on enough to keep a reader interested. Had the author chosen one of these topics as the main plot, this novel could have been worth continuing. As soon as I began to get invested in a plot line (the most interesting being the arson, and Alfie’s decline) , Ms. Miller would switch to another topic entirely (and the remaining were far less interesting).
Miller spends too much time on the details (she spent more than one sentence explaining a slice of toast. Seriously) and not enough time on the entertaining plot points. Also, she narrates her own novels which I am never a fan of as I believe it either speaks to the author’s arrogance (“no one can narrate this novel better than I can”) or her greed. (Also, heads up…as an author, if you EVER describe erratic, comical dancing as “autistic-like dancing”, you will immediately lose my favour) .
I probably won’t have a popular opinion here, and that’s okay. To be honest, I almost completed this novel, but right before the end, I just gave up. I had no desire to see how it ended, had no investment in the characters ( I find Ed completely patronizing. Everything Frankie said to him he would repeat as a question, which just annoyed me) , and the narration was annoying.
This review speaks only to the audio version of “The Arsonist”, by Sue Miller (narrated by Sue Miller, published by Random House Audio).
The small town of Pomeroy, home to “summer people” and long-time residents, is plagued by mysterious fires, assumed to be arson………..
Frankie Rowley comes home after years of working for non-profits around the world, most recently in Africa. She struggles to fit into the life she used to know………
Syliva Rowley and her husband, Alfie, are struggling to deal with Alfie’s recent bouts of memory loss. Sylivia is exhausted, Alfie is frustrated, and they both seek answers………..
Ed is new in town, moving to Pomeroy to take up residence as head reporter of the local newspaper. When the fires start, Ed is quickly swept up in the arson investigation. But then he meets Frankie Rowley, and soon he is swept up in something else altogether………..
This novel is about all of these things. On their own, they are intriguing, but none of the plot points are focused on enough to keep a reader interested. Had the author chosen one of these topics as the main plot, this novel could have been worth continuing. As soon as I began to get invested in a plot line (the most interesting being the arson, and Alfie’s decline) , Ms. Miller would switch to another topic entirely (and the remaining were far less interesting).
Miller spends too much time on the details (she spent more than one sentence explaining a slice of toast. Seriously) and not enough time on the entertaining plot points. Also, she narrates her own novels which I am never a fan of as I believe it either speaks to the author’s arrogance (“no one can narrate this novel better than I can”) or her greed. (Also, heads up…as an author, if you EVER describe erratic, comical dancing as “autistic-like dancing”, you will immediately lose my favour) .
I probably won’t have a popular opinion here, and that’s okay. To be honest, I almost completed this novel, but right before the end, I just gave up. I had no desire to see how it ended, had no investment in the characters ( I find Ed completely patronizing. Everything Frankie said to him he would repeat as a question, which just annoyed me) , and the narration was annoying.
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