Air & Fire

by Rupert Thomson

In the 1890s, “Lower California” is a land adrift, peopled by Indians and half-breeds, and now by the French as well. The Indians are indifferent to Western notions of time and industry. The French, on the other hand, are sufficiently meticulous to import 2,348 pieces of cast iron to the desolate mining town of Santa Sofia, there to be assembled into a church under the supervision of a disciple of the renowned Gustave Eiffel.

This wildly impractical venture is the starting premise for this new novel by the author of The Five Gates of Hell , a writer the Washington Post has called “a virtuoso of the hallucinatory.” As Theophile Valence attempts to re-create Paris in an outpost of hell—and his wife, Suzanne, arouses the doomed passions of an American prospector and a Mexican army officer— Air and Fire fuses adventure and romance into a magnificent tale of conflicting passions and cultures.
 
“Absorbing . . . More than anything else, it is the prose oin which Thomson evokes [his character’s] mental life that, with the concentration of a magnifying glass, kindles this novel’s fire.”— The New Yorker

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Rupert Thomson, (born November 5, 1955) is an English writer. He is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels and an award-winning memoir. He has lived in many cities around the world, including Athens, Berlin, New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Rome. In 2010, after several years in Barcelona, he moved back to London. He has contributed to the Financial Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Granta, and the Independent.

Reviews

[Val Wilkerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first read of Rupert Thomson and I will definitely be looking for his other books. Perhaps I so enjoyed this book because it took place In Baja Calif Sur where I currently live, but I really feel his writing style was incredible. His descriptions took you right along with him and I loved how he wove Mexican folklore into the story. His characters were vividly alive, in fact we run into some of them here in Baja even now.

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Official is 3 and a quarter so the upper 3s.
Ok so i love this writer 2nd book of his. He is purely magical the way he transports you into another world.
But this book tended to lose it sometimes. Not a good as his first. This would not stop me reading more and I still loved it.
A mixed bag of greatness.

[Dan Downing · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very different than other books by Thomson I've read. I can definitely say the book had me anticipating what would happen next the whole time, although after finishing it, I can only reflect on it being kind of boring.

[Christopher M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Air & Fire

This was a beautifully written historical tale in which evocative language conjured up relatable characters in an exotic locale. Gripping.

[Natalie Ratcliffe · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was intriguing, but I feel like nothing happened? It was just a little boring and not really for me.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written, if slightly overdescriptive, novel - not the sort of thing I usually read, but I found enough in this book to grow to like the main female protagonist (though couldn't agree with some of her choices). As rich as it was, I read it on a long journey and was able to get quite immersed in it - alas the ending was a touch confusing and unhappy. I'm not sure whether the author was intentionally vague or lacked focus, but it was a frustratingly flaky conclusion (which stayed with me as an irritant).

[Andy Theyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rupert Thomson has attempted a huge range of styles in his career, to varied success. This historical romance, set in the scorching heat of the wild west is fantastic. Hugely evocative of a very harsh environment and ludicrously stuffy people. Beautiful.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

thompson can be a tad to versatile. this novel left me a little cold it seemed to be his stab at writing Oscar and Lucinda