The Secrets of a Fire King

by Kim Edwards

In each of these elegant and mesmerizing stories, Kim Edwards explores the lives of those who exist on the fringes of society--a fire-eater, an American and his Korean war bride, a juggler and a trapeze artist. Spanning several generations and transporting us to exotic locations in Europe, Asia, and America, this wise and exquisite story collection marks the debut of a gifted new voice in literature.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Contemporary, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction, Short Story Collection

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Kim Edwards grew up in Skaneateles, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region. The oldest of four children, she graduated from Colgate University and the University of Iowa, where she received an MFA in Fiction and an MA in Linguistics. After completing her graduate work, she went with her husband to Asia, where they spent the next five years teaching, first on the rural east coast of Malaysia, then in a small city an hour south of Tokyo, and finally in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

During her time in Asia, Kim began to publish short fiction, and in 1990 her story “Sky Juice” won the Nelson Algren Award. Her stories and essays have since appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Anteaus, Story, and The Paris Review. They have won many honors, including a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Fiction and a Pushcart Prize, as well as inclusion in The Best American Short Stories. Two of her stories have been performed at Symphony Space and broadcast on Public Radio International. Kim has also received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts Council, among others. Her story collection The Secrets of a Fire King was short-listed for the 1998 Pen/Hemingway Award.

Penguin will reissue The Secrets of a Fire King in 2007.

Kim Edwards received a Whiting Writers’ Award in 2002. She has taught in the MFA programs at Warren Wilson and Washington University, and is currently an assistant professor at The University of Kentucky. Her novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, was selected for a Barnes and Noble Discovery Award and won the Kentucky Literary Award for Fiction in 2005. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a #1 New York Times Best Seller in the United States, will also be published in Italy, Japan, Brazil, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Portugal, Spain, Poland, China, Taiwan, Israel, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember when I first heard that a story should engage the reader in a 'suspension of disbelief,' and I can't remember the last time I read a collection of stories that fits this idea so well -- not because unusual things happen, but because the writing drew me in so fully that the experience of reading it felt dream-like. Each story is a fully-realized world unto itself, a perfect little capsule.

One story nailed so well for me how it felt to be a teenager in the 70's that I wasn't surprised to see that I'm about the same age as the author. I'm also not surprised to see that she's lived in different locales: her stories reflect that.

The order of the stories is impeccable (not something you always see in collections), each story echoing in some way the one that it follows or precedes. For example, the themes of the meaning and power of names, of renaming, and rebirth are important in the first two stories -- one of which is my favorite, "Spring, Mountain, Sea", a story I don't think I'll ever forget.

Marie Curie's cleaning woman secretly and repeatedly touches glowing jars of radium in one story; the main character in another returns to a secret underwater cave to touch its clear walls; the importance of hands recurs in the next story as well.

The last story, with its young woman discovering her anger and wresting her identity from a parent, reflects back to the very first story, something I found exciting.

As I read, I also detected what I thought was a wind metaphor, well, moving like wind throughout the separate stories; and when I got to the end of the book, it was also exciting to see that I hadn't been mistaken.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fourteen unforgettable stories of strong female characters. Flawless storytelling.

My first time to read a book by Kim Edwards. I did not read her The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The reason why I bought and read this book was the multiple recommendations I got from my friends, Teresa, Tara, and Joan Winnek who all rated this book with 5 stars.

That was in 2011. I actually bought this that year and read the first story, The Great Chain of Being. I thought it was good although a bit old-fashioned. It is about an African lady who is cheated by her selfish father. She ends up as an old maid because her father wants her to take care of him during his old age so when a suitor comes up to marry her, he says that she is good for nothing. Then in the end, the lady gets the house and becomes rich because the area they are living in becomes a commercial district. When I read this story, I said "well, it is good" but I did not pursue the reading and shifted to other books.

Now it is 2014. Three years when I picked up this book again and read the second story, Spring, Mountain, Sea and oh boy I was floored! It is one of the short stories that I think I will never ever forget. So, beautiful that it lingered in my mind for weeks after reading it. The story of a Korean woman who marries an American GI during World War II and she names her kids Spring, Mountain and Sea. It is only in her mind that those names are because her husband cheated her. He put other names in their birth certificates. After reading this story, I kept on reading until the last, the fourteenth, and I all liked them. But this second story is the BEST. Not only in this book but also in all the other short stories that I've read in my 5 years of voracious reading here on Goodreads.

The title story, The Secrets of a Fire King is about a circus performer who is in love with the sister of his protegee. You see it is not always women who are the central figures in the story. There are also men characters but in the background are the female characters and even if they play minor roles, they world of men still revolves in them. In this story, for example, the sister of the protegee is the reason why the circus performer (fire king) would want to teach the technique of fire eating to the sister's kid brother. It is also nice but the revelation in the second story is a lot better.

The most popular story in the book is the story of Madame Curie's cleaning lady. Marie Curie (1867-1934) was this Polish physicist and chemist who discovered radioactivity and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. The story is well-told. You would imagine yourself being in the room (laboratory) admiring those lights. When the cleaning lady brings her kids to admire those lights, you would feel that you are there with them, seeing them looking at those lights. Very powerful images. Edwards really has this magic to put into words her scenes and making her characters very interesting even if she only spends few pages (these being short stories) about them.

They say that once in a while, a great book comes to you unexpectedly. This is one of those moments for me. Totally unexpected. I would have regretted it if I did not continue reading this after reading the first hum-hum story in 2011.

Why did I take 3 years to pick this up again? I don't know. There are just too many books that came in between and caught my fancy. I guess I need to take more leads from my good GR friends from now on.

Thank you to Teresa for recommending this WONDERFUL book!

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those special surprises I found in a remainder bin, of all places. This will go down as another "best of" story collection for me. I went and looked at other reviews and was shocked at the low ratings it got. I can only imagine that the readers who read her more popular fiction in The Memory Keeper's Daughter were lost within her more literary stories. I did not read MKD, so can't comment, but that's the only reason that can account for the angry one stars.

Edwards is extremely adept at voice and setting and imaginative story plots. She is at her best when mixing science with human nature. Each story was special, but the ones that really stood out for me were "Aristotle's Lantern," "A Gleaming in the Darkness" (which will go down as an all-time favorite, the story of Madame Curie's cleaning woman), and "In the Garden," a tangential follow-up to "Gleaming." Also powerful were "The Way It Felt to Be Falling" and "Thirst." There is a line in AL where one of the characters says, "If there were no mystery, there would be no science." Edwards knows this and is fascinated by the border crossings of myth and reality, mystery and science. "Thirst" takes you by surprise when you realize the main character is a mermaid trapped on land. And you are left wondering, is there nothing that this writer can't imagine and deftly portray? Well, that's what this reader was left wondering, in any case. I will def. read this collection again and again.

[Xian · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are books that have substance, and there are books that are pure style. Not that there's anything wrong with style: see this short piece about Joyce and the "New-Agey claptrap" Paulo Coelho churns out.

But, it is exceedingly difficult to write a readable book that is pure style with, at the heart of it, very little substance. Edwards tries, and the result is a collection of short stories (fictional vignettes really) that falls far short of her debut novel, The Memory Keeper's daughter. The stories focus on a character, and tries to play on her transformation or growth, or a turning point in their life, but often fails. Engagement in the character falls short, and is inadequately replaced by far too many adjectives, or unconnected passages that try to connect the reader to the scene.

In short, I found the book tiring and unsatisfying. Unsatisfying, because the stories lack meaningful conflict and resolution (more the latter than the former), and tiring because the writing style gets trite pretty quickly. The stories are mostly plotless (something that I can envision working, but only in the hands of a few truly skillful authors), and the author doesn't pull it off. It was a struggle to finish reading

[Bhargavi Balachandran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written book! Kim is a master at weaving strange ,unsettling tales alive with emotions.Most of the protagonists are women. The first few stories seemed similar, with common themes of death, redemption and loneliness. But as I read on , I felt that that stories kept getting better and better. A thin chord of melancholy runs through the stories ,but Kim's prowess with words helps one brush away the sadness in the stories and plough right on. I haven't read a better collection of stories in a while now. Kim's stories are like a slow, serenading bitter-sweet dance- definitely not something to be read in a hurry. My favourite stories were the one on Marie Curie and"Balance". Truly poignant and highly recommended for all lovers of short stories..

[Geekwif]

I wanted to like this book. But I really didn't. I picked it up because I had read The Memory Keeper's Daughter and wanted to read something else by the same author. The first few stories in the collection were okay, not great, but then I started to notice a pattern in the author's writing: the men were all villains and the women were all victims, which is not a flattering portrayal for either sex. I read about half of the stories and then finally gave up.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. ‘The Great Chain of Being’ - 5 stars
2. ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ - 3 stars
3. ‘A Gleaming in the Darkness’ - 5 stars
4. ‘Balance’ - 3 stars
5. ‘The Way it Felt to be Falling’ - 4 stars
6. ‘The Invitation’ - 3 stars
7. ‘Aristotle’s Lantern’ - 4 stars
8. ‘The Secrets of a Fire King’ - 5 stars
9. ‘Thirst’ - 5 stars
10. ‘Sky Juice’ - 4 stars
11. ‘Gold’ - 4 stars
12. ‘In the Garden’ - 4 stars
13. ‘Rat Stories’ - 4 stars
14. ‘The Story of My Life’ - 4 stars

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

While this isn't the highest rating, this book was hard to rate, because it is a collection of short stories. My two favorites were "The Way it Felt to be Falling" and "The Story of my Life"

I really loved Kim Edward's writing style, so I am excited to read more of her books in the future. The rating of this book was brought down by the stories that I didn't enjoy. A lot of them were very boring, or confusing to me. My Least favorites were "Gold", "Aristotle's Lantern", and the first one which I can't remember the title of.

[Geoff Wooldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems to me that writing a collection of consistently high quality and satisfying short stories is much more difficult than writing a good novel. Over the years, I have read only a few short story collections that have impressed me and left me wanting more.

With 'The Secrets of a Fire King', Kim Edwards has done a reasonably good job, presenting an eclectic range of thoughtful stories that are interesting and satisfying. The quality is fairly consistent, although, naturally, I enjoyed some more than others.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that a contemporary American author was prepared to write stories about a variety of cultures and religions, and set those stories across a range of time periods. Many of the stories are deliciously exotic in nature.

Edwards is rarely explicit about her locations, not naming the countries or regions where the stories are set, but leaving the reader to figure out through names of characters and the cultural references just where the action takes place.

Edwards prose is elegant and easy to read - she has a pleasing and well-crafted style that draws the reader in, able to enchant and entrance.

There are 14 stories in this anthology, and I liked most of them. Only a few left me somewhat less than satisfied.

A few highlights include the title story, 'The Secrets of a Fire King', 'Aristotle's Lantern', 'A Gleaming In the Darkness' and 'Sky Juice'.

I was intrigued by the title 'Sky Juice', and the explanation for it, revealed a short way into the story, is a notable example of the beauty, charm and originality of Edwards' stylish prose.

"One monsoon, many years ago, we took off all our clothes and ran naked through the falling water, trying to catch the rain in our mouths. Sky juice, my brother called it. The sky was full of water fruit, a lush fruit that spilled juice, soaked through the clouds and fell to us. We were dripping with sky juice, sky juice slid cool on our tongues, ran rivers on our arms and legs."

I'm certain that next time I'm caught in the rain, I will think of it as sky juice.

3.5 stars.

[Tita · Rating 1 out of 5]

Este é o tal livro que vinha no pack dos “Segredos de Família” que li anteriormente.

É um livro com 14 contos, sobre pessoas comuns em diversas partes do mundo, sobre diversos temas comuns. No entanto, o livro não me conseguiu agarrar e excluindo um ou outro conto que consegui gostar, ler a grande maioria deles foi algo que não me deu prazer.
Foi uma leitura algo custosa que nem sei o que dizer sobre o livro =(

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was mentioned somewhere and I had to request it interlibrary loan to read it, since it is out of print. The stories were original. My favorite was The Invitation, about a woman living in a foreign country for 30 years and still living as an outsider.

[Joan Winnek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Many thanks to Teresa for her excellent review.

[aubree · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised to find a few stories set in colonial Malaysia in this collection of short stories. I think the writing is beautiful throughout the books, plus there's a couple of gems I loved (Spring, Mountain, Sea and Thirst) but Gold annoyed me with the author's incorrect naming of Malay characters. If you want to write about something outside your culture at least do more than a cursory research? Maybe ask someone who actually comes from the ethnic group you're writing about to beta read your work?

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secrets of a Fire King is one of 14 well crafted stories told with brisk assurance,mostly from a first person perspective.Despite a uniformity of length and style and definate thematic similarities, all of the stories describe wildly different and unusual circumstances.Edwards skill is relentless as she catapults the reader into each scenario.Somehow we are immediately immersed in the commonplace of the bizarre situations articulated with such bland confidence that we can hardly challenge their authenticity.These may be stories about marginal lives but their telling is from the center.

None of the upbeat or tranquil here. Edwards is exploring the shady fringes of the possible, the reprucussions of displacement and exile, the many permutations of estrangement, opportunity and risk.And while transformation is a continual possibility,it is the way her characters deal with dissillusion that is the apex of each story. There is no neat ending, these characters are in transit and each ephinany contains its own disquieting lack of resolution.

For these stories do not comfort. The world may be "a shimmering place, shaped anew in every instant by the mystery of perception" but it's triumphs are fleeting and betrayal is certain,reversals of fortune and loss of identity taken for granted. The Secrets of a Fire King reveal that life is but a trick and all meaning arbitrary.

I am not sorry I read this book, and there were 2 0r 3 stories that I thought exceptional, but I was always releived to move on, away from the bleak vision of lives unmoored from their purpose. I would not recommend this book to anyone with deppressive tendencies.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a series of short stories which in general isn't bad, however there are about 15 different short stories in this book and each story contains a very eccentric character. Edwards brings each story to the climatic point and then ends each story. So no story has a resolution and you are left wondering what happens to each and every character. She never ends any of the stories or weaves them together in the end. It is just 15 stories that end in the middle. At first I was very interested in the book wondering how she would weave the lives of these characters together, but by the end I was angry because she just kept telling stories and introducing more characters without tying up previous character conflicts.

This book left me frustrated and wasn't an enjoyable read at all.

[Pam Bustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured these stories!

I love the variety of worlds in this collection. It is already calling me back in for a slower, more contemplative reading.

[Cinnamon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written; I kept returning to some stories over and over again. The way it felt to be falling; Spring, mountain, sea; The invitation, the one with the mermaid lady whose title I forgot but whose beauty I won’t.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uma leitura leve que nos leva a vários sítios, a várias cidades, a diversas épocas históricas e a alguns preconceitos.

[Heather(Gibby) · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some really strong short stories in this collection, my only complaint was that some were too short, and could easily have been fleshed out to make a full novel

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very hard to read, all of these people's pain.

[Adeena Moghni · Rating 2 out of 5]

back from my hiatus and unfortunately we’re not starting off with a banger. there were a couple stories in here that i loved but most fell flat for me. but to be fair maybe Im just not a short story person

[Anya Nardone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book because it is different from what I typically read. It is centered more around short stories rather than one long story. "The Secrets of a Fire King" involves thirteen short stories that are each impressive, but somewhat creepy. They are almost like fables, each having a lesson to learn from. Although they require a lot of interpretation because things are often alluded to or hinted at with underlying meanings. My favorite of all the stories was number three, "A Gleaming in the Darkness". This story revolves around a cleaner of a scientific lab who idolizes the owner (Marie Curie). The cleaner, who is very uneducated (especially with science) wanders around the lab every night fiddling and playing with all of Marie's findings and jars of unknown substances just because of her pure curiosity with everything. I thought this book was very successful because, despite all the different stories within the one book, they all shared a common theme and genre which linked them together. The only thing that was a little disappointing was that none of the stories intertwined or had any relevance to one another. Although, some people may like how each story is different and unique. It keeps a reader constantly changing their thoughts and reading something new and exciting. Overall, "The Secrets of a Fire King" is well worth a read for anyone interested in Kim Edwards's work or short stories.

[Jason Brown (Toastx2) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not one who normally invests time in short stories. It is not that I dislike them, more that I find them unsatisfying. I get involved and dedicated to an idea and find it cut short. This is expected as it is the intent of the medium.

A result of this is that I either avoid them completely, or read them, and feel that my opinion is not a fair reflection of the work. So I rarely write reviews of collections like this.

This stated, Kim Edwards’ collection of shorts ‘The Secrets of a Fire King’ was excellent.

Thirteen vignettes are carried here, and for the most part, each was impressive. They are almost elusive amorphous fables, each having a lesson to learn from, but requiring interpretation. Most center around personal evolution, both emotional and spiritual, but none are heavy handed enough to just say “this novel is about XX”.

Folks who read this should be made aware that much of the work is darker than her other writings. Many of the tales have an undercurrent of tragic humanity that is gripping. This is no “Memory Keeper’s Daughter”.

One of the stories here stands out every time I think about it. The third story, ‘A Gleaming in the Darkness’ is my favorite. The story centers around a cleaning woman in a scientific laboratory. She is uneducated and obsessively idolizes the woman who runs the lab, Marie Curie. She wanders the lab and fiddles with jars and ampoules that glow beautifully in the darkness of the lab.

The second favorite was the title story ‘Secrets of a Fire King’. With out going into too much detail, it was fairly amazing. It details the love triangle between a man, woman, and boy who are in a traveling side show.

This collection is well worth picking up. Surprisingly, it is commonly found in stacks of discount books at Borders and other stores, so you may be able to get it very cheap. This is not a reflection of the authors work, instead Penguin Publishing’s failure to properly market this remarkable book. I do not know what they put into play during the marketing of this, but it obviously was not enough or was completely approached wrong.

--
xpost RawBlurb.com

[Ciara Rafferty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly gorgeous anthology of short stories with a number of themes, from science to childhood innocence to fantasy, across different time periods and very different places. You feel for the characters and get a sense of the settings, whether Southeast Asia or middle America, very easily. I didn’t want it to end.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think my enjoyment of The Memory Keeper's Daughter was a fluke. I found The Secrets of a Fire King, a collection of short stories by Kim Edwards a chore to read.

The short story collection has fourteen short stories. They are set in very different places and in very different eras. They all focus around a supposedly strong female narrator who must prove herself during impossible situations. With the exception of "Spring, Mountain, Sea" and "A Gleaming in the Darkness" I didn't like the stories, the themes or the protagonists.

It seems that Edwards has found one thing to write about no matter where or when she sets her stories: women are beaten down by the patriarchy. I'm not denying that women have been (and still are) being denied basic rights for one reason or another but it's not enough of a hook to tie a group of stories together. After the third or fourth story, Edward's pacing and characterization becomes predictable and that adds to the tedium of reading the book.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was excited to get three stories into the book and still be looking forward to what came next. Usually books of short stories start off well and then morph into mediocre disappointments for me. I loved and appreciated every story but one (only because I have a personal hatred for stories about couples who see the significant other cheating and say nothing-I can't even begin to relate to that). My very favorite was "Thirst", which reminds me of The Little Mermaid. I'm not sure if the main character was a mermaid or a physical embodiment of the ocean, but either way it was beautiful.

I disagree with those that say the metaphors are overreaching. Kim Edwards does a wonderful job of creating interesting similes and metaphors without losing control. I never found myself wincing or rolling my eyes, the way I do when I attempt to read Alice Hoffman books.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most every short story collection (save Hempel, Cheever, Munro, and Robison) waffled about how many stars to give this. Some of the stories are utterly superb (and so worthy of five stars), and a few others are merely good (three, maybe), so we'll average 'em.

There's a thoroughness to the evocation of women and of the world that I admire enormously and that times tried my patience (I like swifter voices). Really notable, though, for the wide range of these stories, and for their insistence on mature subject matter: Unlike many debut collections, which muddle with coming-of-age tales, Edwards actually writes about adults, and about adult dilemmas. Good stuff.

[Hershey Go · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was quite wary of picking this book up. but later i realized that it was worth it. The stories inside are short but full of meaning. THey are written beautifully and each story doesn't really have an ending--it's up to you to conclude, or end, with your own imagination. While reading this book I felt like i was apart from reality--such was the beauty of the way it was written. The author, Kim Edwards, knows how keep her reader interested and usually throws endings that makes you wonder on life itself. I love it. I love it more than the Memory Keeper's Daughter.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magical, mystical, mysterious. I was pleasantly surprised by this collection of short stories. I was completely enchanted by the beautiful prose and descriptions of far flung, exotic places and beautiful gardens. Edwards skillfully sets the mood and tone of these stories. If you have a romantic soul and a love of travel and adventure you will enjoy this collection. The Memory Keeper's Daughter was not a favorite of mine, so I wasn't sure I wanted to read this. I'm glad I did! Edwards is a master of short stories.