The Fires [Paperback]

Alan Cheuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2007

Finely-honed portraits of hope and change, these two novellas are linked so skillfully that they achieve the intensity of a single novel in which some characters succeed and others fail on separate but equally compelling quests. In "The Fires," Gina Morgan makes a pilgrimage to Uzbekistan to carry out her husband's final wish—to be cremated—only to find herself entirely at sea in the strange new reality of the former Soviet republic, while in "The Exorcism," Tom Swanson begins to make sense of his life when he retrieves his angry daughter from her exclusive New England college after her expulsion for setting fire to a grand piano.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these two novellas, Cheuse (The Grandmothers' Club; Lost and Old Rivers; etc.) dissects the aftermath of two very different deaths: one, of an American businessman traveling in Russia; the other, a mother, jazz pianist and drug addict. In the first novella, The Fires a museum worker named Gina learns that her husband, Paul, died in a car accident while en route to Uzbekistan. Gina travels to Russia to ensure her husband gets cremated, per his wishes, and the foreign, surreal and familiar collide when Gina takes Paul's body to a Hindu ceremony to be cremated. The Exorcism applies much more overt dark humor to similar feelings in a substantially different character. An unnamed baby boomer discusses his sadness following the sudden death of his first wife, renowned jazz pianist Billie Benjamin, who fatally overdosed on heroin. Billie's death hits her daughter, Ceely, hard (she lashes out postcremation by torching a piano at her college), and the narrator's fond recollections of courting Billie are not received warmly by his new wife. Misery is in greater supply than comfort throughout, and Cheuse approaches his subjects from interesting angles, making these novellas of grief strangely compelling. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

Book critic Cheuse, whose resonant commentaries are heard on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, returns to fiction after the essay collection Listening to the Page (2001). Cheuse ignites fire in the mind and in the heart in a pair of tightly written novellas (the dialogue volleys as smoothly as that of a play) that form a yin-yang of grief and healing. In the title story, a woman suffering the debilitating hot flashes of menopause journeys to Uzbekistan to collect the body of her husband, who died in a fiery accident, and finds herself participating in a Hindu cremation. In "The Exorcism," a man struggles with his own conflagration of sorrow after his ex-wife, a brilliant jazz musician, dies of a heroin overdose. He then offers sanctuary to their college-student daughter, whose mourning turns dangerously incendiary. Startlingly beautiful in their searing radiance and molten heat, Cheuse's poetic tales of pain and forgiveness, loss and remembrance stoke our age-old fascination with fire as a force of destruction and renewal. Seaman, Donna

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Santa Fe Writer's Project; First Edition edition (September 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977679918
• ISBN-13: 978-0977679911
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #773,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN CHEUSE


"The Voice of Books on National Public Radio"--that's how novelist, essayist and story writer Alan Cheuse has been described. For over twenty-five years, Cheuse has been "reading for America" every week on NPR, and he's also been writing a number of books of his own, and teaching the art of narrative and literature at George Mason University for over twenty years.
He is the author of the novels The Bohemians, The Grandmothers' Club and The Light Possessed. His latest novel, To Catch the Lightning (winner of the 2009 Grub Street Prize for Fiction), follows the career of turn of the century photographer Edward S. Curtis and his quest to photograph the western tribes of North America. He is also the author of several collections of short fiction and a pair of novellas published under the title The Fires. He is the co-editor with Nicholas Delbanco of Talking Horse: Bernard Malamud on Life and Art, and co-author with Delbanco of Literature: Craft & Voice, a major newly published introduction to college literary study, and also the co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, and editor of Listening to Ourselves: Great American Short Fiction.
Cheuse's essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in numerous places, such as The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, The Antioch Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other venues. His essay collection, Listening to the Page, appeared in 2001. His collected travel essays came out in June 2009 under the title A Trance After Breakfast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Death by Fire, May 29, 2008

By 

Lisa Munley "a.k.a. Mom" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fires (Paperback)

The Fires by Alan Cheuse of NPR Radio fame is an intense reading experience comprised of two novellas in which people set fire to something precious. The stories have elements in common- love and memories, misery and grief, loss and transformation- but the characters are very different.

These stories are extremely well crafted and excellently told. I would love to hear them in Cheuse's smooth radio voice. They are compelling, tragic, yet funny at times. I enjoyed the symbolism of fire and words like sacrifice, destruction, purification kept coming to mind while I was reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uncomfortable Journeys, October 24, 2008

By 

E. A. Doonan "book geek" (Silver Spring, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fires (Paperback)

Our small book club found an enormous amount to talk about in these two tight little novellas. Alan Cheuse is brilliant at using the eyes of his characters to see the world and their voices to give life to their stories. They were two odd and uncomfortable journeys : A middle-aged American woman winds up at a mourner at a Hindu cremation ceremony in Uzbekhistan; An electrical engineer helps his daughter grieve for her mother, a jazz singer who died of a heroin over-dose. We were left feeling the psychic jet lag, spiritual hangovers and savoring the impossibly rich aftertastes of these roundabouts. I'd read more of his work without hesitation.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Envy-invoking as always!, September 15, 2007

By 

M. Alemi (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fires (Paperback)

At the first book reading of the Fires, Cheuse said in response to a member of the audience that he always wanted to try his hand at writing a novella, and these two stories provided him with the right material. And lucky for us to witness the unfolding of human drama at the breadth and depth of a masterpiece in such short spaces. A little grayer and more relaxed than the days of the Grandmothers' Club, and The Bohemians, his envy-invoking prose (if you fancy yourself a writer) and absorbing details of foreign travel (if you're not) can't help but draw you in headfirst. Interior monologues are especially a joy to read, and there are a few of those sprinkled throughout.

For those who are looking for life lessons, especially those looking for the right words to cope with the death of a beloved I recommend a second reading of the first story, The Fires. And maybe a second reading of the second novella, The Exorcism, to those who feel unable to hold on to the strands of their lives slipping through their fingers. Cheuse is a trustworthy companion and an endless source of inspiration.