Who By Fire Online Book Group discussion
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Who by Fire
We're exchanging books here ... and discussing each other's books. Come join us, read and comment or be part of the book exchange
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Congratulations, Mary! Your recognition is so well deserved. I started reading Who by Fire last night, and I could not put it down. (I'm lucky that we happened to have a two hour snow delay here in Colorado, otherwise I'd be a walking zombie this morning.) Your characters are so well imagined, and their stories woven together so gracefully. I wonder how you managed to weave in and out of time like you do without losing the reader, even for a moment, or letting us get lost (I know that's the skill of a writer, but it amazes me still.) These characters are so alive- I can't imagine that they aren't real, grieving their losses somewhere.
What each of your characters chooses, the mistakes they make and lives they live, unfold in such a way that you begin to understand them better and better throughout the story (even ones that were a bit unlikeable at the start). And of course grow scared for each and every one of them, and have such compassion for their secrets and pain.
Your writing somehow pulls us in on a secret we don't even know because we begin to understand the characters more and more. We know the disaster will be epic, and of course are unable to turn away because the story is told with such love (if it was written with anything less than a tone of self discovery, it would just feel purient or utterly tragic). I know I'm going to tear through the rest of the story within a day. Thank God for excellent books and amazing writers!
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Congratulations, Mary. That is really great news. We know about the hard work that's invested, so it's nice to hear about some acknowledgment and recognition. I'll look forward to reading your book. Best wishes for continued success and growth.
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I think we should read each other's books and talk here about the creative process and invite others to join in.
Here's my offer: I'll gift the Kindle version of my book to you. You do the same for me with yours. We'll both read and chat. Or I'll if you prefer, and you might, give you the audible.com version of my novel that I read in an NPR studio. Yeah, I'm the reader.
I would need your e-mail address to do this and of course you would need mine if you're in for this exchange. If you're in, we'll exchange addresses via Goodreads messaging. Thanks so much for your kindness of a reply to my message and for the good wishes, no what you may decide. Let me know.
Michael, I hope you won't mind if I chime in. I'd love to know the name of your book so I can read it as well. I'm always interested in learning about the creative process and finding a new book to read! (I and have invited friends to join Mary's group to discuss Who By Fire, so perhaps they could read your book as well and be part of the discussion.)
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Mary wrote: "Oh, lovely, Michael,I think we should read each other's books and talk here about the creative process and invite others to join in.
Here's my offer: I'll gift the Kindle version of my book to ..."
Mary, That's a fine idea and a nice offer. I'll send you my email for the Kindle swap. Thanks for your thoughtful efforts in support of the group and the process.
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Mary
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Join in the conversation with us by reading them both: Field of Vision by Michael Jarvis and Who by Fire by Mary L. Tabor. BTW, he and I don't know one another. He graciously joined my book club.
You never know what can happen when you take a chance, as Michael certainly did.
Let the fun begin. Who knows: Maybe a radio show will result, meaning we'll talk live and others may call in--haven't tried that last yet--so book club members, with this new change to the group, you do have to tell us if you're in for all this.
We'll begin with a written exchange to start. So come on over folks. Let's read. --Mary
Jennifer wrote: "Michael, I hope you won't mind if I chime in. I'd love to know the name of your book so I can read it as well. I'm always interested in learning about the creative process and finding a new book ..."Hi Jennifer, I replied yesterday but now don't see my message to you anywhere. I'm glad you chimed in. Hope to hear more from you.
Wonderful! I look forward to reading your book. Thank you for being open to the idea of sharing your work and willingness to talk to you about it. What a cool group!
I can report that Who By Fire stands the test of time -- that is, it's unforgettable. I read it several months ago and still carry it around in my head. I found the characters to be so real as to suggest people I have known. Their situations are so vividly etched that I could smell the Iowa farmland and the streets of DC. I could feel the fire. The extra-marital affair had me on edge. The death scene near the end is so finely described that it will take your breath away. But this is no mere tale of men and women in love. It is a deep voyage through the labyrinth of human needs and how we struggle, sometimes privately, to satisfy them.
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Rhett wrote: "just started reading chapter I so I will need a few weeks till I can post anything about the novel :)"
Rhett wrote: "just started reading chapter I so I will need a few weeks till I can post anything about the novel :)"
Oh, that's so great. Thank you for being here in the group. All comments welcome.
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Oh, golly...
I've never read a book like Who by Fire. It's so masterfully written that the characters seem real. Not in the typical "I'll lose myself in a good book for a few hours" sense. Truly real, as in, the characters seem more human and nuanced than I feel myself at times. Tabor makes observations about the human heart, pain and how history affects our choices that are wise and cut to the bone. The story moves seamlessly between the characters' pain and its relevance to my own life - almost like I'm reading the memoir of a friend's truest, deepest confessions and can't look away, no matter how raw and real the friend goes. But the layered stories of the characters keeps us from judging them. That's the beauty of this book. That it doesn't give trite answers to bad choices. It doesn't vilify or moralize, but shows the incredible humanity and feeling behind every mistake, misstep and tragedies that draw the characters like moths to the flame (sorry, had to throw in a fire reference.) Highly recommended, an amazing read.
My comment was cut off accidentally so I am posting an approximation of the lost portionMichael wrote: "I can report that Who By Fire stands the test of time -- that is, it's unforgettable. I read it several months ago and still carry it around in my head. I found the characters to be so real as to s..."
Lost portion: ... uggest people I know and love, doing things I could believe actually happened. The story is so evocative I could smell the corn -- and the smoke -- in Iowa and sense the urban rush in DC. The passages on science and art are masterfully done. But this is no mere tale of two couples. It is a deep probe of human needs and desires, how they are satisfied and how they end. In fact it is the climactic death scene that will take your breath away. Watch for Mary Tabor to surprise us with her next one.
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I’m past the halfway mark in Mary Tabor's Who by Fire. I was struck at once by the novel’s original style and its density. Density in this case means the layering of emotional terrain that builds upon itself as the story moves along. The narrative describes the interior landscape of its characters as they go about their daily activities, and since Mary and I traded books we are noticing the contrast in our writing styles, which has added another dimension to this exchange. My novel is dense in a more exterior manner, wherein the actual physical landscape is presented in descriptive detail. I’m enjoying the contrast, and the subtle interconnected flow of the lives of Mary’s characters, who appear as real as anyone you’ve ever met.
An evocative and poetic exploration of marriage, loss, and guilt—Who by Fire is a story of adultery told in meticulous fragments which look back to chronicle an affair conducted by the narrator’s wife, the disintegrating relationship leading to it, the physical demise of the woman, the affair, life itself. She is the focal point and the object of her husband’s affection and concern as he struggles through jealousy and sadness to deconstruct and understand their story, as well as that of the other couple involved, with life-affirming metaphorical forays into music, food and science.
All in all an original telling, realistic and emotionally detailed, with the narrator’s fascination with fire serving as another metaphor. A cerebral and finely layered story, meant to relate the rich interior experience of love and failure and the difficulty of knowing another, necessarily subtle and dense, as real life usually is.
The novel displays a fine literary depth, and while I was at first wary of the subject matter (because we bring our own limitations to whatever we read) I came to appreciate these characters and their meaningful journey toward acceptance and forgiveness. A very fine achievement by Mary Tabor.
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Michael Jarvis’s Field of Vision opens with this epigraph that aptly describes his main character, Jake Mayfield and that promises a level of erudition in the journey: “As a matter of fact, it would be easy to show that the more we are preoccupied with living, the less we are inclined to contemplate, and that the necessities of action tend to limit the field of vision. —Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind”. I love this book by Bergson and do believe Jarvis was influenced by it. Jarvis also quotes Friedrich Nietzsche throughout the tale of paradoxically caring and careless sex, fine imagery through a photographer’s eye, violence that will fulfill the lovers of plot-driven fiction and at its center a heart, both Jake’s and the author’s that carries us forward. I believe most of the Nietzsche quotes are from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, from The Portable Nietzsche, a book Jake borrows from his first lover in the tale, Sheila, and again that promises more of an interior journey to match the external conflict Jake meets on a Caribbean Isle Soufriere where his adventures and hoped for self-discovery begin. But arguably his epigraph promises exactly what we get here: Jake, changed but, ultimately, the same Jake we met at book’s start with a bit more heart. Good books are all about heart-change. Good writing is all about putting your heart on the page. I have thoroughly enjoyed a book exchange with Jarvis, and his gentile intelligence has come through as we have personally gotten to know one another as authors. We may not be ideal readers for each other’s work, but one thing is for sure here: Jarvis has put his heart on the page. For that alone, I give this writer five stars, as I do with all writers whom I come to know and who have taken considerable risks in their writing.
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Mary, not to worry! I can't remember quite what I said, but you captured the gist of it very well when you quoted me. Fortunately, I have a good reason not to remember--I had a very productive (offline!) writing day today, and my brain was filled up with new words. All the best to you!
I want to share this news with my friends and, one can always hope, readers—though that last is a tough one. I certainly have kept in mind and heart and action Grace Paley's advice to the artist: "Keep your day job," and I hold in my heart Tillie Olsen's words of solace from her brilliant book Silences:
“Literary history and the present are dark with silences; some the silences for years of our acknowledged great; some silences hidden; some the ceasing to publish after one work appears; some the never coming to book form at all.
“These are not natural silences, that necessary for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural; the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot. In the old, the obvious parallels: when the seed strikes stone; the soil will not sustain; the spring is false; the time is drought or blight or infestation; the frost comes premature.”
But every now and then, one can take a measure of courage to continue.
I salute all of you who read, all of you who support the arts and all of you who struggle alone in the silence of your attic, in the breath of your spirit.
My publisher announces the news that Who by Fire has won Shelf Unbound's Notable Literary Fiction Award here: http://www.outerbankspublishing.com/w...
Blessings,
Mary