Signal Fires
The addictive new novel about secrets and lies from the New York Times bestseller
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
Division Street is full of secrets. And one night in particular has been kept buried.
'Lyrically examines the ways a single event can alter many lives for ever . . . wonderful' Good Housekeeping
An impulsive lie – told with the best intentions – consumes the Wilf family. Even as they change and grow, each is haunted by what they choose to forget. Then the Shenkmans move in across the street: a couple with their own secrets and a lonely, brilliant son.
As their stories collide in ways they never could have imagined, the past comes hurtling back to Division Street, setting in motion a spellbinding chain of events that will transform both families forever.
A heart-stopping story about human connection, for fans of THE PAPER PALACE and LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE
‘A fantastic writer’ Dolly Alderton
‘Stunning’ Lisa Taddeo
‘Tender and philosophical’ Hannah Beckerman, Observer
* READERS LOVE SIGNAL FIRES *
'Was both devastated and wowed at the end'
'The best novel that I've read all year! I couldn't put it down'
'Profoundly moving, deeply relatable and so beautifully written'
'Gorgeous, deeply moving and captivating'
'Beautiful, full of emotion and magic'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shapiro returns after the memoir Inheritance with a beautiful exploration of the connections between two families and the reverberations from a teenager's lie. In 1985 Avalon, N.Y., 15-year-old Theo Wilf drives his 17-year-old sister Sarah and her friend Misty home after a night of partying. After he accidentally drops the car lighter down his shirt, he crashes the car into the tree in front of their house. Ben, Theo and Sarah's surgeon father, rushes to save Misty's life, but fails, and in an impulsive decision, Sarah tells Ben that she was driving. Then, in 1999, shortly after the Shenkman family moves in across the street, Ben helps deliver their infant, Waldo, during an emergency birth. Shapiro continues to jump around in time, unspooling the consequences of these two fateful nights "like so many wobbly tops set spinning." As Theo becomes a chef and Sarah a screenwriter, both wrestle with their guilt, while Ben, who never really gets to know the Shenkmans, is left alone to deal with his wife's dementia and develops a bond with Waldo in 2010. Shapiro imagines in luminous prose how each of the characters' lives might have gone if things had turned out differently. It's an intriguing meditation.
Customer Reviews
Book like no other
Beautifully written, painfully sad in some places, deeply emotional in others.
Signal Fires
Excellent read. Really well written, inteligently scripted. You‘ll be quickly ingrossed in the characters and captivated by their story.
Top marks.