Night of Fire : A Novel
Author(s): Colin Thubron
Award-winning, bestselling novelist and travel writer Colin Thubron returns to fiction with his first novel in more than a decade, a searing, poetic masterwork of memory.
A house is burning, threatening the existence of its six tenants—including a failed priest; a naturalist; a neurosurgeon; an invalid dreaming of his anxious boyhood; and their landlord, whose relationship to the tenants is both intimate and shadowy. At times, he shares their preoccupations and memories. He will also share their fate.
In Night of Fire, the passions and obsessions in a dying house loom and shift, from those of the hallucinating drug addict in the basement to the landlord training his rooftop telescope on the night skies. As the novel progresses, the tenants’ diverse stories take us through an African refugee camp, Greek Orthodox monasteries, and the cremation grounds of India. Haunting the edges of their lives are memories. Will these remembrances be consumed forever by the flames? Or can they survive in some form?
Night of Fire is Colin Thubron’s fictive masterpiece: a novel of exquisite beauty, philosophical depth, and lingering mystery that is a brilliant meditation on life itself.
Review(s):
“A vivid and wistful meditation on the mysteries of diverse lands, personality, and memory…Thubron is remarkable for his supple, nuanced prose and concentration on individual personalities as well as place. This evocative and philosophical novel reminds us that such qualities make for powerful fiction as well.”
“Each seemingly separate chapter is a gem-perspectives on life and death, love and loss, time and truth, and God…so elegant and poetic that if I could read just one book this year, I would absolutely pick this one.”
“Gradually the stories interweave in a way that is both mysterious and mystical, until in the end we are left in a kind of dream world….Veteran travel author and novelist Colin Thubron has produced an engrossing, unsettling and brutally beautiful masterpiece.”
“He combines curiosity with erudition, and stylishness with gravitas…. The novel slowly builds into a haunting study of memory, identity and loss…. His calm, contemplative tone and his mastery of imagery are on full display here.”
“A work of art that is as thrilling as it is profound…a masterpiece.”
“Night of Fire may be the hottest novel of the year, but the real heat is generated by Thubron’s gorgeous prose and his reflections on the persistence of memory…A profound and exquisite novel.”
“An engrossing novel by the celebrated travel writer…Thubron intrigues with his many resonances and takes the reader on a journey through life’s essential questions.”
“Thubron is one of our greatest living travel writers…his observations are sharp and betray his deep sense of curiosity, and he fashions his many fascinations into prose that reads like poetry.”
“Remarkable...luminous.”
“A compelling, lyrical tale of how a single spark unravels seven entwined lives.”
ISBN: 9780062499769