Where There Was Fire
A Novel
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3.1 • 8 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A lush and atmospheric novel about three generations of a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias
“An exciting new voice with a prowess for lyricism.” ―Publishers Weekly
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A B&N DISCOVER PICK * A GMA BUZZ PICK * MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: CrimeReads, Debutiful, Good Morning America, Library Journal, Zibby Mag, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more!
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, and her husband disappears, the future of Teresa’s family is changed forever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture.
Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption in Where There Was Fire.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
One family tries to rise from the ashes of a catastrophic fire in poet John Manuel Arias’ sumptuous debut novel. When countless acres of the American Fruit Company’s Costa Rican banana fields go up in flames, the fallout devastates the local community, including Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s small clan. Nearly 30 years later, Teresa’s daughter Lyra still struggles with the hazy, painful memories of that night—and with her mother’s curious actions. Arias’ sweeping family drama deals with themes of loss and redemption as we bounce back and forth between the 1960s and ’90s. The fluid plot shifts from character to character, letting us view the same events through very different eyes, and the story’s mystical elements blend beautifully with Arias’ expressive prose. Where There Was Fire is a haunting story about a family’s mission to save its future by dealing with its past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Arias's lush and ambitious debut, the women of a Costa Rican family wrestle with their resentments and secrets in the long shadow of a banana plantation. On a hot night in 1968, two catastrophic events alter the lives and fortunes of the Sánchez Cepeda household: José María murders his mother-in-law in front of his wife, Teresa, and one of his daughters, and the American Fruit Company's largest plantation burns to the ground. In 1995, the surviving family members are still trying to make sense of what happened. Teresa, now about to turn 60, has continued to live in the same house in Barrio Ávila, with only her mother's ghost for company. A dire medical diagnosis forces her estranged daughter, Lyra, to contemplate allowing Teresa to meet her grandson, Gabriel. Hanging over the familial tension is the legacy of U.S. agricultural exploitation, particularly the use of toxic pesticides on American Fruit Company crops. Arias shows a knack for arresting images ("He stumbled out into a mud-dirt road and swayed in the imaginary breeze only drunken men feel") as he winds back and forth through time. The novel is strongest capturing the complications of love and the parental struggle not to inflict the traumas they inherited on their children. It's a rewarding outing from an exciting new voice with a prowess for lyricism.
