Join the Hartsville Branch Library's Book Discussion Group 

We will meet on Tuesday, January 22nd at noon 

at the Hartsville Country Club.

This month's book....

American Fire

by Monica Hesse

A breathtaking feat of reportage, American Fire combines procedural with love story, redefining American tragedy.

 

The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn’t stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate—there were hundreds of abandoned buildings.

 

 And by the dozen they were burning.  The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America.  Hesse brings to life the Eastern Shore and its inhabitants, battling a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain.

 

One of NPR's Best Books of 2017 &

a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Copies of this title are available at the Circulation Desk of the

Hartsville Memorial Library for

readers who plan to attend the discussion.  

Please join us!