The Fire Starters
The Fire Starters by Jan Carson is another of our fiction recommendations for March. The Fire Starters is Jan Carson’s second novel and it was the winner of the EU Prize for Literature. Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her previous work includes Malcolm Orange Disappears a novel, Children’s Children a short story collection, and Postcard Stories a flash fiction anthology. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She was the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar 2016 short story competition. When writing about a book I think it is helpful to include the blurb as this is what folks might first read if they picked up this book in a bookshop. On the back cover, we are told of The Fire Starters:
Dr. Jonathan Murray suspects his newborn daughter is not as harmless as she seems.
Sammy Agnew is wrestling with his dark past and fears the violence in his blood lurks in his son, too.
The city is in flames and the authorities are losing control. As matters fall into frenzy, and as the lines between fantasy and truth, right and wrong, begin to blur, who will these two fathers choose to protect?
I love magical realism. One of my favorite books is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Flannery O’Connor is one of the authors that made me fall in love with reading and writing. In an interview, Jan Carson mentioned both Flannery O’Connor and Gabriel Garcia Marquez as influences for her writing and I can definitely see how the dark and surreal are weaving through The Fire Starters. The addition of magic realism takes what on the surface seems to be a post-Troubles narrative and makes it into something totally new and bizarre. Carson said in the previously mentioned interview that she thinks post-conflict areas lend themselves to the surreal in a natural way because of how the stories and characters from those areas are hyperreal or straddle the real and unreal. The impact of these techniques is something totally original and made this book an instant new favorite.
This book is set in East Belfast, and the city is as much a character in the story as are our two protagonists, Sammy Agnew and Dr. Jonathan Murray. Some chapters are written from a birds-eye, all-knowing view of the city which brings the city to life. I loved these passages filled with humor and vivid detail. As the story continues Carson weaves more and more surreal elements into the city blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. We also have vignettes about the Unfortunate Children, who are children living in the city with otherworldly abilities. The switch in voices worked for me and helped me mesh the narrative threads together.
Carson balances the surreal elements with some emotional themes about family and fatherhood. Both Jonathan and Sammy are grappling with their past trauma, what it means to be a parent, and what love and protection can look like in the face of unforeseen challenges. There are also lots of great moments where the characters reflect on the realization that their children are separate beings who have their own destinies and lives. Both characters are faced with hard and life-changing decisions and Carson holds the tension around these actions throughout the story. I found myself wanting to stay up later and later to see what would happen next.
For More Information on The Fire Starters: