American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land
Updated: Aug 8
Much in the way a fire starts slowly, taking its time to catch hold before, seemingly suddenly, reaching critical mass and overwhelming, then engulfing, its target, Monica Hesse’s American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land is a slow-burn of a book.
The story, about unlikely lovers who, over the course of several months in 2013, set fire to dozens of buildings across rural Accomack County, Virginia, began life as a 6,000-word article in the Washington Post. Though expertly constructed and perfectly paced, this expanded version, at only 255 pages, often felt padded in ways that didn’t necessarily paint a fuller picture or make the story better. That is to say, sometimes less is more: I’ve never read the original article, but its conciseness may have been its greatest asset, reporting a compelling story in the leanest, meanest way possible.
The biggest shortcoming (or strength, but more on that in a minute) of American Fire has nothing to do with Hesse, her journalism, or her writing, however. It is that, while she had access to nearly everyone involved in the case, including firefighters, law enforcement, profilers, investigators, and local residents, only one of the two arsonists was willing to talk. What we get, then, is one version of events, and one person’s motivation for, and rationalization of, the crimes. From the co-conspirator we get nothing more than a complete and unfaltering declaration of innocence—without explanation—which, through no sin of omission or commission on the author’s part, may just be the book’s salvation.
Rather than serving up a complete package, a story told from all sides, from which all conclusions can be made and drawn, and about which we’d promptly forget, we’re left wanting more, wanting to know who’s telling the truth, or even what the truth is. No, like Serial, S-Town, and the best episodes of This American Life, American Fire succeeds precisely because we don’t get a tidy ending, because we’re left having to debate, and discuss, and ultimately decide for ourselves, “Why?”
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