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PRODUCT
Fire Exit: A Novel
Product Description:
Price:
$14.99
Detailed description:
“Remarkable.”—NPR
“Spellbinding”—TIME, A Best Book of Summer
A Best Book of June at The New York Times and Chicago Review of Books
“Utterly consuming. . . . Fire Exit absolutely smolders.”—Tommy Orange
From the award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.
From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life—from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
Now, it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth, and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on to and care for what he can—his home and property; his alcoholic and bighearted friend Bobby; and his mother, Louise, who is slipping deeper into dementia—he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is his secret about Elizabeth his to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth, even if it could cost her everything she’s ever known?
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Product group:
Categories: Best Books of 2024 So Far
Product name:
Fire Exit: A Novel
Price:
$14.99
JFL –
Fire Exit is a punch in the heart, the kind of novel that really does leave you heart-sore for a long time afterward.
The novel revolves around and is narrated through a man who is white and, in adulthood, was removed from his residency on an Indian reservation. His eviction and his whiteness separates him from his daughter, and from the life and culture he grew up with on the reservation. Fire Exit is the story of this man grappling with his identity as an outsider, and a story of those on the inside — Indians — who are themselves still in the process of sorting through the legacy of settler colonialism and the co-called Civilizing Mission against them. Fire Exit highlights the fluidity of identity, but also the rigid barriers which define it within ourselves and by others imposed on us. The novel exposes the messiness of relationships, especially in indigenous communities which have been so ravaged by racism and colonial ideologies.
I am reminded again how singular it is that indigenous people of North America are some of the few peoples on earth who must continually prove who they are. I recently read a piece in the New Yorker on Pretendians (typically white people who claim indigenous heritage or identity) and am struck by both the necessity of proof and how exhausting it must be as a human being. It saddens and inspires simultaneously.
The ever-present trauma of colonialism is a burden we cannot put down, any of us; and the pursuit of decolonization can never end. For that reason I am loving this wave of indigenous literature; though not “new,” it feels like indigenous writers and stories are getting more mainstream attention, reaching new audiences (like myself) who find solace and inspiration in them.
But, back to Fire Exit.
Though I cannot know what this is for indigenous people, I can say that as this is also a story about family, what it is to be a family, what is it to act out and perform family, I felt connected to a kind of universal understanding of “family” in my reading of it.
Talty is such a fantastic writer. The words just come together, like lyrics that feel familiar and yet woven together, produce a song I haven’t heard before. The mothers and fathers, daughters and sons in this novel are people we can connect with, and yet, as those living in reservations or on the edges of them, they have a unique life experience, one that I do not know (cannot know, really). I feel that Talty has made it possible for me to feel a little bit of their experience.
It is a sad novel, and a beautiful one.
TVNBH –
Fire Exit
By Morgan Talty
This book is about the Native American Penobscots who live on a reservation in Maine. The author himself is a citizen of the Penobscot Nation. Thus he is very familiar with the culture of these people.
This book is also about family and secrets – and whether it is better to tell the truth, or more harmful. Charles Lamosway is the protagonist here. Because he was white – his mother and unknown biological father both being white – Charles was not allowed to live on the reservation, even though his mother, Louise, had lived there with his stepfather Fredrick.
So Fredrick and Charles had built a house for Charles just across the river from the reservation. Charles had spent a lot of time on the outside looking in. But as he grew older, a secret he had kept for a long time began to gnaw at him and he wanted to come clean. His struggle with whether to tell is the central story here.
But that wasn’t the only secret. There was the secret of what happened the day Fredrick died. A secret that caused years of alienation between Charles and Louise. Now Charles, having recovered from his alcoholism, is trying to rebuild that relationship, aided by his friend Bobby.
While some of the scenarios here are rooted in Native American culture, the book could really apply to all of us; family, secrets, misunderstandings, relationship issues are things we all must deal with and Charles’ story resonates on all these levels. An interesting read.
Angie –
Fire exit is a literary fiction piece with a first person narrator Charles. Charles is white but lives on a reservation. His mother, Louise, married his native Stepfather, frederick, when Charles was 3. Frederick has just passed away, the only father Charles has ever known. He feels most at home on the reservation, he fathered a child with a neighbor, this is a secret. Charles is not a part of her life, and she doesn’t know she is not a full blooded indigenous person. A great character is Charles’ best friend Bobby, who he met in AA. Bobby and Charles struggle with their sobriety most of the book… as his mother Louise falls deeper into dementia. What makes a family? What makes someone part of your family? What do we owe to our memories and family history? The answer to all of these questions are complex, and some of what Charlie explores in this sensory descriptive novel.