I am not really into post-apocalyptic dystopian novels, but considering the bewildering time we are living through this moment, this novel, The Fireman by Joe Hill, and its 752 pages seemed to be just what the sociologist ordered. It was a page-turner despite its intimidating size (and I even read it in hardback!). I found myself shunning television or other distractions to get back to the book. The main character, Harper Grayson (Willowes), is a complex and strong female character -- I sure did appreciate that. The novel is told from a third person limited POV, which I think was a strength, and perhaps, a weakness. I reveled in thinking of the capable nurse who is finding her strength as the world goes to hell, but it also forces other characters to launch into long monologues to provide background. I don't know why, but that always annoys me. It wasn't cringe-worthy in this novel, but I did think it stood out like a sore thumb just a little bit. It is something to think about, right? POV is so important when authors choose to tell a story, yet we hardly consider it sometimes, even as writers of our own fiction.
So, why did I even pick up this novel? I might have said so in the previous post about Save Yourself -- I can't remember. Joe Hill is the son of the infamous Stephen King and the brother-in-law of Kelly Braffit who wrote the aforementioned novel. I heard an interview with Hill on Terri Gross's Fresh Air. I was gripped by how Gross described the "disease" that Hill created for this for this novel is at once both beautiful and terrifying. The spore, commonly known as Dragonscale (the scientific name, Draco Incendia Trychophyton) has this terrible beauty as it smokes its way across the East Coast of the United States and Canada. When Harper first contracts the disease she notices "Two days later her arm is sheet music. Delicate black lines spooled around and around her forearm, bars as thin as the strands of a spiderweb, with what looked like golden notes scattered across them" (58). The frightening part is that several people who contract Dragonscale spontaneously combust. They literary begin to smoke and then explode into flame, yet some do not, but that danger always looms and lingers and puts everyone on edge -- that might be putting it lightly...
It's funny because Hill finished this novel on October 9, 2014. It seems prescient. The aftermath of the Dragonscale rips the world into camps -- those who work together to survive and those who fight to destroy the disease, and therefore, other human beings. I am writing this blog post in the aftermath of the two political conventions -- conventions that echo these same themes: "The Law and Order" candidate versus the idea that "We are Better Together." It freaks me out when science-fiction writers do this kind of thing. I mean Hill even includes little gems like "FOX said the Dragon had been set loose by ISIS using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. ... Then Glenn Beck burned to death on his Internet program, right in front of the chalkboard, burned so hot his glasses fused to his face, and after most of the news was less about who did it and more about how not to catch it" (13). When you read this novel of disaster, you will recognize the glimpses of the world that has reared its ugly head in the past couple of months. Yet, why does this surprise me -- writers are observers and these politics are nothing new, right? Writers often just see clearer than we do.
And the allusions. Who are the fans of Fahrenheit 451? Do you get the title now? There's more in there. This is also, undoubtedly, a nod to Stephen King's The Stand.
