October 2018 Book, The Stars are Fire

In The Stars are Fire, Anita Shreve's sets her novel in Maine during the real-life disaster of 1947 when a severe drought caused a series of massive fires that burned out of control for 10 days. In Acadia National Park. 10,000 acres went up in flames, along with most of the mansions on Bar Harbor’s Millionaires’ Row. Fishermen and the Coast Guard rescued thousands from the shoreline. Firefighters and evacuees were trapped behind a burning wall that cut through Kennebunkport. Sixteen people were killed, thousands left homeless.

In this story, when the fire arrives, Grace Holland and her neighbors head to the water’s edge. Twenty-four years old, a mother of two young children and pregnant with a third — Grace holds her children in the frigid sea overnight as the flames send smoke and burning debris onto the beach. In the midst of crisis, she finds a strength she didn’t know she had, but her losses are devastating, and she faces a precarious future.

 When the fires break out and destroy so much, they also leave room for new growth. Grace’s life suddenly holds out the promise of a fresh start. The question of whether she will prevail — or again be trapped into subservience — keeps the reader rooting for her. Shreve builds suspense with small details: a cloud of dust in the wind, a pervert lurking at the seashore, strange noises upstairs. Like every lone woman, Grace is in a constant state of alert, and Shreve is very good at keeping a low level of dread running through her pages.

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