I enjoyed Night of Fire. Its structure is somewhat akin to A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan in that it is a series of short stories bound together by a rather subtle common thread, in the case of Night of Fire, a rooming house going up in flames, one floor at a time. The boarders include the owner of the building, an amateur astronomer/photographer looking through his telescope on the roof; a failed priest; a neurosurgeon; a naturalist; an anxious invalid reliving his boyhood, and a drug addict hallucinating in the basement.
This is not an easy read as it combines ideas of religion and philosophy, with some neuroscience and physics tossed in. There were a number of lovely rich words that I had to look up. Any book that enhances my vocabulary, I consider worthwhile. The author, Colin Thubron, is a travel writer, and his descriptions of an orthodox monastery on a Greek island, cremations in India, and RwandaN refugees in Tanzania both ring true and intrigue this veteran wold traveler. The prose is preceptive and thought-provoking, and the memories of all the victims of the fire are often heart-breaking.
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Night of Fire (Harper Perennial, reprint edition, January 16, 2018) is available through:
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