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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
🎧
I enjoyed the audiobook. The book seemed to be well written and well researched.
I enjoyed the audiobook. The book seemed to be well written and well researched.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Toxic relationship
Minor: Drug use, Infidelity, Alcohol
In 2012, a 5-month arson spree torched 80 buildings on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The culprits—a sad-sack loser & his party girl paramour—turn out to be an oddly hypnotic trailerpark Bonnie & Clyde. Mostly solid true-crimer by a Washington Post reporter. Procedural passages on “passive adsorption elution” & “gas chromatography” slow the pace. And it fizzles when painting the fires as a metaphor for an economically scorched south. But the bizarre story of the firebug lovers has tension to burn.
This was a fascinating book about a couple who set over 70 fires in rural East Coast Virginia. Monica Hesse not only captures the story of the couple who set the fires but she also paints an amazing picture of rural life and its economic collapse. I listened to this book and couldn't wait to get back to it.
This was pretty good, very interesting true crime. Arson is always fascinating to me. Pretty well written except for some parts that got pretty long-winded and then other times when details were left out and addressed later, or not addressed at all and left the reader confused.
This was such a good nonfiction! It read like a story and was really engaging. I liked the breakdown of the town and it’s history, the law enforcements role and tactics, and the backstory of the arsonists. I definitely recommend this!!
fast-paced
I happily read the whole book, but it won’t stick with me. The author reeaally wants this story to have big things to say beyond the series of arsons in a small West Virginia town that it focuses on, but it never really got there for me and it was heavy-handed. E.g. “I got to Accomac County and the metaphors were endless.” And “Suddenly her story wasn’t just about arson, it was about love, declining industry, ...” The central characters never felt fully fleshed out to me either. As a crime story, it’s pretty amazing, and that was enough to enjoy the quick read.
Well, this book was.... bizarre. I knew it would be by reading the blurb and is why I picked it as my BOTM pick last July, but whew. I couldn’t put it down once I started. It had a lot of tropes that I’m a fan of: small town, true crime, a story where you know who committed the crime and are just waiting for all the details to unravel, interesting crime facts, etc. There were several websites, people and movies mentioned that I kept notes of on Evernote to look up later. To sum it up, I enjoyed the read and sometimes had to remind myself that this was a true story with real life people because of how off-the-wall some of it sounded.
Ideally 3.5 stars. It’s very well researched and in many ways well told but a lot of it just felt like a shrug and I wish reflected more on the people who’s properties were burned and if that had a real effect on them.
Thanks to Katie Adams of Liveright Publishing for my copy of American Fire. This is the best kind of nonfiction: a story I knew nothing about, told in well-written prose that kept me turning the pages. Accomack county on the Eastern Shore of Virginia was plagued by arson in 2011-2012 resulting in over 80 fires. The area was a prime spot for these crimes with many abandoned old homes after the population had shrunk from a change in the US economy. Monica Hesse describes the factors which led to the crimes as well as the firefighters (all volunteers) and the arsonists themselves. I was completely immersed in this story and was satisfied with the ending.