Psychosis? The plot of "The Arsonist," whose main action coincides with the 1998 Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, has three strands. The Arsonist was nothing like I expected it to be. The Churchill blaze — which left 11 dead — had been an accident, he insisted, the result of a wayward cigarette. Dividing the book into three sections, the author brings together the findings of crime scene experts, forensic fire scientists, and arson squad authorities, all of whom meticulously scrutinized every possible clue left by a fire in which âburning birds fell ⦠July 2014. The conditions were explosive: a dozen years of drought; a breathless, record-breaking swelter; and gale-force winds. One thought on âThe Divine Arsonist: A Book Reviewâ bita says: July 8, 2013 at 8:22 am. We might never know the mind of a firebug. The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper Reviewed by Alison Huber 23 Oct 2018 In February 2009, the state of Victoria experienced extreme weather events that provided the perfect conditions for the bushfire catastrophe that has come to be known as Black Saturday. HALA ALYAN is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonistsâ City and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Smoke creeps around their charcoal trunks and charred leaves. An exceptional read. The latest book by the Australian writer tells the story of just one of the Black Saturday bushfires, a blaze deliberately lit on the outskirts of Churchill in the Latrobe Valley — coal country. And so “The Arsonist” becomes a sharp-edged portrait of social as well as pyromaniacal desolation — a “sociology of fire.” “The arsonist may be a misfit, an outlier, even a sociopath,” Hooper writes, “but he inhabits the same environment and the same community as his victims.”, Hooper, a lauded investigative writer and gothic novelist, has been described as an “antipodean Joan Didion,” but Australia has its own tradition of evocative reportage that excavates the human from the inhuman. Chloe Hooper The arsonist: A mind of fire Hamish Hamilton, 2018 254pp. ISBN: 9780670078189 At its best, that tradition produces rich cartographies of discomfort and doubt (as in the work of the mighty Helen Garner). Her model is the Latrobe Valley on Black Saturday, February 7, 2009, which killed 11 people on a day when 173 died in the most deadly fires in colonised Australia's history. The central one begins with the return of ⦠Code Name Verity meets I Am the Messenger in this riveting YA novel from Morris Award finalist Stephanie Oakes, in which three points of view are woven together in a story thatâs part Cold War mystery, part contemporary coming-of-age, and completely unputdownable. Book reviews. “We ignore this at our peril.”, Untangling the Story of a Deadly Blaze and ‘The Arsonist’ Who Lit It, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/books/review/the-arsonist-chloe-hooper.html, “The arsonist may be a misfit, an outlier, even a sociopath,” Chloe Hooper writes, “but he inhabits the same environment and the same community as his victims.”. What is especially powerful and nuanced about The Arsonist is Hooper's detailed investigation into "A Mind on Fire" (the book's sub-title), the psyche of the intellectually impaired man, Brendan Sokaluk, 42, who was eventually convicted in 2012 of 10 counts of arson causing death on Black Saturday and jailed for 17 years. On Feb. 7, ⦠The blackened trees smoulder. The Arsonist. The elemental terror of Black Saturday requires little embellishment, only the quiet dignity of witness. Reviews âIn Hooperâs sure hands the grimmest details become exquisite imagery. What is disturbing is her comparative point that another 162 people died in bushfires that day because of failures in an ageing privatised electricity grid with inadequate safety standards and regulatory checks. "Arson is increasingly fertile ground for the venting of discontent," she writes in The Arsonist, by turns a fascinating real-life thriller, police procedural, intense sociological study and the long-overdue story of fire in Australia. Book Review: 'American Fire,' By Monica Hesse The rural Virginia county of Accomack was plagued by arson in the winter of 2012. Molly Mavity is not a normal teenage girl. Hooper did not attend the trial, nor did she interview Sokaluk. Here, too, in this timber plantation, menace lingers. ", Crime rates here were the highest in Victoria and more than 30 people were known as firebugs. Please try again later. Only 1 percent of Australia’s bushfire arsonists are ever caught, so when a suspect emerged within days, detectives were wary: “Surely the very first person they were narrowing in on couldn’t be the one?” Brendan Sokaluk, whose distinctive, sky-blue sedan had been abandoned meters from the ignition point, admitted responsibility, but not intent. Book reviews News & Features Video Interviews Podcast Interviews ... Frankie becomes more involved than sheâd like after realizing she may have seen the arsonistâs car the night of the first fire. Somewhere very near here the fire had begun.". Review: The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper Chloe Hooper shares her insights into the sort of person who might perpetrate the crime of arson. Burned-out is a term frequently applied to the so-called helping professions, and Frankie Rowley, the protagonist of Sue Millerâs new novel, THE ARSONIST, is no exception. As the detectives gather information they trust they are getting closer to who is responsible and itâs only a matter of time before they catch the fire bug. "If arson is an expression of a particular psychology, there will always be arsonists," Hooper writes, mentioning the case of Rosemary Harris, caught lighting fires with her son in the same area two years before. The earlier review was intended for another seller, not this one. "The Arson Squad was aware that there were more deliberately lit fires near the urban-rural fringe â places where high youth unemployment, child abuse and neglect, and intergenerational welfare dependency met the margins of the bush, the eucalypts. Straight black trees stretching in perfect symmetry to their vanishing point, the ground covered in thick white snow. Thirty-seven per cent of bushfires are deemed suspicious and 13 per cent maliciously lit. The Arsonist is a brilliant and moving book about ecological devastation and social desolation. As she points out, bushfire arson, though not unique to Australia, is a national speciality. THE ARSONISTA Mind on FireBy Chloe Hooper. On Feb. 7, 2009, a rough beast slouched its way across Victoria, Australia’s southernmost mainland state. Someone is setting fire to the houses of Pomeroy, New Hampshire, in Sue Millerâs latest novel, but thatâs beside the point. Her new novel, âThe Arsonist,â takes place far removed from national news or world conflicts, but it, too, reflects the most urgent matters of our time. “Guileful and guileless, shrewd and naïve.” But how much easier it is, she shows, to conjure a devil than to confront more nebulous and unrelenting foes, like corporate negligence or climate change. Learning who Sokaluk is does not absolve him of his misdeeds, but it does not absolve us either. Not all are easily answered. The snow, stained pale grey, is ash. Hooper dug through court transcripts, documents and interviews to recreate the Black Saturday bushfires and inquest and to present a context for her account of Brendan Sokalukâs crimes. She was 29 and her son was 15. The Arsonist is a powerful book â Hooper has carefully negotiated the task of opening up old wounds and paying respect to victims and survivors, whilst also clearly telegraphing that thereâs much to be considered when it comes to our reactions to arsonists. FICTION: As a small New Hampshire town grapples with a mysterious arsonist, native daughter Frankie Rowley grapples with ⦠I finished The Arsonist by Stephanie Oakes last night and I have no idea when or if I will ever stop raving about it. Revenge? Chloe Hooper's The Arsonist. ANALYSIS/OPINION: THE ARSONIST By Sue Miller Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95, 320 pages. 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