Reviews for The Book of Fire:
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
A family’s happiness is “swallowed by a fire that blazed up to the sky” in this haunting tale of devastating trauma in present-day Greece from the author of the best-selling The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019). Irini, Tasso, and their 11-year-old daughter Chara fled when fire fueled by drought and scorching heat swept through their village. Months later, struggling to heal herself and her family, Irini grieves for Tasso, whose hands were badly burnt in the fire and who is now, like the forest in his dreamlike paintings, “frozen in sadness”; and for Chara, once fearless, but now a “ghost of herself.” Coming across an injured man blamed for starting the fire, Irini, conflicted, walks away. Her story, told partly in a fairy-tale-like journal, explores the psychological impact of environmental loss and nuanced questions of accountability, including for climate change. Lefteri is a master storyteller and a writer of breathtaking imagery. Irini’s anguished memory of Chara appearing to “[glisten] all over with flame” is rich and evocative. An ancient chestnut, totem of both family and the environment, stands alone in the charred forest, melting “like tar” into the ground, half burnt and half in bud, reaching for the sky, portending redemption.
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A family in a Greek village struggles to recover after an enormous wildfire. This novel revolves around a massive fire that incinerates hundreds of thousands of acres in rural Greece, forcing many residents to run into the sea to escape. Its narrator, Irini, is a musician; her husband, Tasso, is an artist; and they have a precocious young daughter, Chara. Before the fire their life was idyllic, but afterward they’re deeply traumatized—they have lost their home, Tasso’s father is missing, and Tasso and Chara have serious burns. Chapters narrated in the first person tell the family’s story several months after the fire; other chapters told in the third person are an account Irini is writing of the disaster itself, including the desperate hours she and Chara spent in the water, awaiting rescue and not knowing whether Tasso survived. In the story’s present day, the narrator goes for a walk through the ruined forest with her dog and finds a dying man, who turns out to be the developer who “stole the world” when he set what he intended as a small fire to clear land for a resort. The manner of his death adds a mystery element to the plot and leaves the narrator questioning herself as she battles to hold her family together. The novel’s strengths include its terrifying descriptions of the fire and its explanation of how drought brought about by climate change contributed to the blaze’s ferocity. But the book is marred by some improbable events, one-dimensional characters, and often stilted dialogue—long passages sound far more like lectures than conversation. A sometimes compelling story of disaster is diluted by unrealistic details. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Publishers Weekly
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In the dramatic latest from Lefteri (Songbirds), a Greek community deals with the aftermath of an out-of-control fire. Music teacher Irini Diamandis survived the blaze with her daughter Chara and artist husband Tasso. They live in Tasso’s father’s house, which was spared by the fire, but Tasso is nearly catatonic, and Chara and Irini are caught in loops of anxiety. On a walk through the ravaged land, Irini comes across real estate developer Michael Trachonides, who intended to burn five acres adjacent to the neighborhood but lost control of the blaze. Michael, who is sitting on the ground against a tree, has a rope around his neck and is barely breathing. Irini panics and flees, only to return later and find him dead. Unsure if he was lynched or had hanged himself, she hesitates to call the police, but Tasso convinces her she must. Lefteri shapes the plot with elegant subtlety, portraying the questions about Michael’s death as a nagging uncertainty rather than a lurid mystery. Irini’s lyrical narration details her family’s harrowing experience of the blaze and takes measure of how it “turned to ashes the people we once were.” This hits hard. Agent: Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Marianne Gunn O’Connor Literary. (Jan.)
