A Fire Story

When I left the East Coast for California fifty years ago, everyone warned me about earthquakes. They thought I was foolish! I can recall only Loma Prieta. I had fallen asleep on the couch while the World Series was being played close by. My daughter, not the quake, woke me up to feel the shaking. Compared to thunderstorms, blizzards, and hurricanes back east, earthquakes were more mythological than actual.

Life was calm until the 2017 night when smoke coming through an open window awoke me. No fire engines or signs of burning anywhere, I went back to sleep. In the… show more.

Another fire, another story, this one a graphic memoir about the 2017 wildfires that ravaged Northern California, claiming dozens of lives and destroying the author's home. It's a beautiful book, illustrated with a simplicity and starkness that pulls you inexorably forward. The night of the fire itself is present in the narrative, but the majority of the book is occupied with what comes after: the unexpected kindness of friends and strangers, the nonlinear progression of grief, the bureaucracy and absurdism of tragedy, and all the questions of how you begin to rebuild.