Spontaneous

by Diana Wagman

When Auntie Ned spontaneously combusts, she leaves behind a pair of smoking orthopedic shoes and a house that she wills to her best friend's daughters. Amy and Gwendolyn are sisters--closer than close--who move into Ned's bungalow and inherit her a closet full of housedresses, a freezer full of meat, and the passionate flames of unrequited desire.

Amy's appetites--for meat, for sex, for getting her way--are ferocious, while Gwendolyn longs for a more normal existence but can't refuse her big sister anything at all. Not the intrusion of Dr. Minor, Professor of Pyrophenomena, who has come to investigate Auntie Ned's death. And not the presence in their bed of Roosevelt, a troubled carpenter whose steamy entanglement with the sisters will either save them all or create a situation that's bound to combust.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 18, 2000

About the author

Diana Wagman is the author of five novels. Her second, Spontaneous, won the 2001 PEN West Award for Fiction. Her latest is Life #6 from Ig Publishing. She is an occasional contributor to the Los Angeles Times and has been published in many literary journals, most recently Black Clock and the n+1 anthology, MFA vs NYC.

Reviews

[Dianah (onourpath) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so thankful for authors like Diana Wagman: writer of beautiful gems hiding their brilliance under anonymous rocks. You usually have to unearth them, and when you do, the joy of digging through their backlist is the icing on the cake! The evangelical zeal I feel when talking about her books is real; as you may have intuited from the odd subject matters she has embraced -- they run far and wide, and each is as good as the next. Human spontaneous combustion, here. Yeah, enough said.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this novel while at a thrift store. I never thought I would like a novel about spontaneous human combustion, incest, love, lust, and death, (who am I kidding, I probably would have)

[Alli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up from a pile of books my friend was getting rid of when she moved. She said it was good. I trusted her.

She was right. This book is incredible. Two sisters have an Auntie who dies from spontaneous combustion, and they inherit her house. The sisters are quite extraordinary, and the other characters add to the story: a repair man with a crush on one of the sisters, one of the sister's abusive ex-boyfriend and business partner, and a scholar of spontaneous combustion who comes to visit the scene. It's incredibly well written, impossible to put down, and unlike anything else I've ever read.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like a burger that had too much stuff in it - when you start cooking it (rare, of course), it begins to fall apart slightly, kind of crumbly. It was so outrageous and unbelievable it took away from some of the enjoyment (not even including the spontaneous combustion part).
Diana Wagman herself is a fantastic author. Her writing style, descriptions, phrasings - I can't wait to read other books by her based on her writing alone.

[Randy]

Bizarre, macabre, disturbing, fascinating, erotic ... human spontaneous combustion, combustion of the heart, the psyche... Diana Wagman does quite a lot with this, and it is definitely not a book for the faint of heart. The narrative propulsion is powerful and I simply had to now how it would end, but not for everyone, for sure.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, really. I picked up this novel at a thrift store in Ireland. Not sure I would recommend it to anyone as it is bizarre, the characters are all strange and it all seems to be rather overwritten.

[PEN Center USA · Rating 5 out of 5]

2001 PEN Center USA Award Winner for Fiction

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific, strange, and literary. Wagman tells a story about spontaneous human combustion, incest, love, and death. And she does so in an admirably entertaining manner.