Our first BLR Book Club pick is FIRE EXIT, a novel by Morgan Talty. Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, The New Yorker, ELLE, NPR, and Harper’s Bazaar, Fire Exit is available on BLR’s Bookshop page, where a portion of every purchase goes to supporting our programming.
About Fire Exit
From the award-winning author Morgan Talty, comes a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.
From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life―from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
With this post, we wrap our reading and commentary about Fire Exit. You can see all of the weekly posts by visiting our BLR Book Club page.
You can still be part of the discussion by joining the BLR Book Club Facebook Group.
And you’re invited to join us for a live conversation with the author, Morgan Talty, on June 11. Find more information and RSVP here.
Note: All pagination is based on the paperback version.
Week 7: Chapters 24-28
Charles joins in the search for Elizabeth. Instinctively, he tracks her to Fredrick’s fiery house, where she waits with the gun she has stolen from him.
- Searching in the snow, Charles thinks, “I’ve been here before…there was something more to think about, right then, something that I knew that would have been powerful if it had come to me…” (209). What is the memory pressing on Charles at this moment?
- When Charles visits Elizabeth at the clinic, she asks why her mother told her the truth. He responds, “We are made of stories, and if we don’t know them—the ones that make us—how can we ever be fully realized? How can we ever be who we really are?” (226).
- Elizabeth is the reason Charles was distracted from attending to Louise and also to Fredrick when they died. I’m not sure if this means anything. What do you think?
- When Charles discovers Louise lying lifeless in bed, he is finally able to share the truth with her. He “just started talking, told her body the truth of every story I had ever been part of, beginning with who that elephant belonged to” (231).
- How did the ending resonate for you? Do you think Charles has a relationship with Elizabeth in the future?
Join us on the BLR Book Club Facebook Group to discuss Fire Exit, and visit our BLR Book Club page to read all the commentary.