How to Set a Fire and Why
Books & Poetry
Author Jesse Ball playfully challenges readers with his insightful book about a troubled teenage girl with her own arson manifesto.
The buzz at this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week was Jesse Ball. Readers talked among themselves about his work, audience members raved about his session and, at their own sessions, guest writers recalled something they’d once heard him say.
The man’s a bit brilliant. His previous books are critically noted, but it’s his latest book, How to Set a Fire and Why, that’s touted as being his best.
Lucia’s got a Zippo lighter – not just any Zippo lighter: her dad’s. He’s dead and her mother’s in a mental institution staring at the fish pond.
Lucia lives in a garage with her ageing aunt, who’s the only person who gets her, and her new school’s almost as bad as the last one she just got kicked out of. Things aren’t going so well and the idea of arson’s fast becoming a fetish.
It’s Lucia’s wry narration that drives this book. She’s funny, damaged and dangerously intelligent. The unforgettable Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye comes to mind but Ball’s style isn’t as gloomy as JD Salinger’s.
Sometimes a page might have eight paragraphs on it, each two sentences long. Sometimes a page might have only two sentences. Sometimes you’ll have to turn the book 90 degrees to read those two sentences. Ball is playfully challenging, pushing borders of exposition and ensuring readers love his troubled protagonist.
How to Set a Fire and Why, by Jesse Ball, Text Publishing, $29.99.
It’s a novel of expression, mostly: how many ways can Lucia narrate what’s going on inside of her? So long ago, Faulkner attempted the same with his stream-of-consciousness technique and changed the way we read and wrote literature. I can’t help but wonder if Ball is doing the same with his own unique “thing”. Over-the-top for me to say? Maybe. But he does teach classes on lying and the art of lucid dreaming at the Art Institute of Chicago, so that should give him some cred. And he’s a poet.
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How to Set a Fire and Why is a fun read, no doubt about it, but it’s also an emotional read, an inspirational read, an insightful read, and it’s encouraging. My plan is to keep the buzz on Ball going by recommending this book.
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