The Fire Gospels: A Novel

by Mike Magnuson

The Fire Gospels takes place in the McCutcheon River Valley in Wisconsin during a long-standing drought. Through characters like Grady McCann, a hardworking maintenance man at an old folks' home; his wife, Erica, a strangely evangelic Catholic; and Lucky Littlefield, the local weatherman turned preacher who enjoins his viewers to "pray for rain" at the beginning of each broadcast, The Fire Gospels tells in vivid detail the story of the drought and how the townspeople are seduced into believing that Lucky will pull them through their time of struggle.

Genres: Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 1998

Reviews

[Katie Stokes]

If read in 2024, at least one of the characters in Magnuson’s Fire Gospels may seem quite familiar. Local weather huckster in a tropical shirt, Lucky Littlefield, discovers during a historic Minnesotan drought that he can wield a hypnotic, even vaguely religious power over the rain-starved locals in his viewership during one long, hot summer. Lucky, like at least one U.S. president, finds the weakest links in his religion-addled McCutcheon County audience, connects their common need (if only thematically), and exploits it until disaster really strikes and the area is sieged by wildfire. Immune to the fallout of Lucky Littlefield’s grotesque pied-piping, local blue-collar citizen Grady, his religiously devout wife (and Lucky’s assistant), and some college chick named Kate—who Grady happened to meet at his gay BFF’s watering hole the day before—navigate the hellish landscape of what Lucky sold so thoroughly as a televised religious apocalypse that he ends up believing it himself. Magnuson uses prophetical-styled narrative prose to push the omniscient narrator into tongue-in-cheek Old Testament territory with southern accents and fire.

[notoriousDUG]

An amazing book but one that show cases an author that will become much more than he currently is. this book was a fast paced ride through rural America gone sideways on faith. every thing moves at breakneck speed with a tinge of the ludicrous about it. At point it gets a little muddled or the message seems obscured but over all it is great. I loko forward to great things from Mike Magnuson; he riminds me a little bit of Tristan Elgof

[Kristi]

Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. I finished it because it was short , and I want to meet my goal this year.

[Doug Haynes]

An amazing book but one that show cases an author that will become much more than he currently is. this book was a fast paced ride through rural America gone sideways on faith. every thing moves at breakneck speed with a tinge of the ludicrous about it. At point it gets a little muddled or the message seems obscured but over all it is great. I loko forward to great things from Mike Magnuson; he riminds me a little bit of Tristan Elgof

[Leah]

funny well-crafted tale of sin and redemption...drought and conflagration in boring middle America. A little bit Flannery O'Connor, a little bit Chuck Palahniuk.