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.
Every week, we will be discussing a section of the book; follow along and learn more by visiting our BLR Book Club page, where weekly posts will live.
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Note: All pagination is based on the paperback version.
Week 6: Chapters 20-23
Louise’s recriminations against Charles grow more severe. During a nor’easter, his worry about Elizabeth drives him into the thick of the storm.
- In one of Louise’s rare lucid moments, Charles considers telling her the truth about Fredrick’s death. But “if that was one of the final times she spent knowing herself, knowing me, did I want to ruin it by pushing her into some dark depth about some truth that did not even matter?” (186). It’s interesting he keeps the truth from his mother but feels driven to reveal it to his daughter. Why do you think there’s a difference?
- At one point he thinks, “I wasn’t sure Louise knew who I was anymore, but I was quite certain I was nobody” (188). What does he mean? How is his sense of existence connected to Louise’s ability to remember?
- Louise tells Charles, over and over, “It’s all your fault.” Is it?
- When the wind whistles, Louise tells Charles, “Don’t whistle back” (197). Many Native American cultures believe that whistling attracts malevolent spirits.
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.