“No one knows exactly when it
began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like
wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit,
Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s
Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with
beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst
into flames. There is no antidote. No
one is safe. Harper Grayson is a compassionate and dedicated nurse as pragmatic
as Mary Poppins, treating hundreds of infected patients before her hospital
burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on
her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a
pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To
Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying
comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to
healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long
enough to deliver the child. Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him
sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New
England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless
Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to
exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone
as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the
hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron
bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he
strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has
learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the
hunted and as a weapon to avenge the wronged. In the desperate season to come,
as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets
before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.
The Fireman is Joe Hill’s fourth novel, and his longest to date.
Also, much like his famous father’s fourth book, Hill gives us an epic tale
about the end of the world. And while it’s not Captain Trips that decimates the
planet, followed by the rise of Randall Flagg, we get a plague and vigilantes doing
“Gods” work. This is also a weird book as well, filled danger and a lot fear,
but there is hope at its center. Part of that optimism centers on Harper
Willowes, whose love of Mary Poppins songs and quotes can be enduring, but also
creepily odd at the same time.
Much like NOS4A2
(which this novel closely resembles and one I really enjoyed), Hill spends a lot of time detailing the
way people react to danger. By giving us this cornucopia of folks who respond in
different ways to their fate, you get a good idea that while everything is
falling apart, you can count on some going bat-shit crazy, while others take a
more Zen like approach to their personal fates.
As seems to be a theme in a lot
of books I’ve read over the years, The
Fireman is a bit over-long, and the ending seemed to take off like a great
race, only to take a left turn for some conversations before coming back to the
finish line. And there is a female villain that is so unlikeable, so one dimensional;
she grows wearisome as the book goes on.
But the book is entertaining as
all hell. And I really do like Joe Hill, as he’s creative, fun, and even original
(even when emulating his Dad).
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