American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land - Monica Hesse

Written by Monica Hesse
Read by Tanya Eby
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Release date: July 11, 2017
Duration: 07:31:43

Shocked by a five-month arson spree that left rural Virginia reeling, Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse drove down to Accomack County to cover the trial of Charlie Smith, who pled guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But Charlie wasn’t lighting the fires by himself: he had an accomplice, his girlfriend Tonya Bundick.

Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, who had already been decimated by a punishing economy before they were terrified by a string of fires they could not explain.

Incorporating this drama into the long-overlooked history of arson in the United States, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights that this quiet county spent lit up in flames, mesmerizingly evoking a microcosm of rural America - a land half gutted before the fires even began.

“Narrator Tanya Eby tells a fascinating story. From late 2012 through early 2013, Accomack County, located on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, endured 86 fires, all set by an elusive arsonist. But listeners shouldn’t expect a prolonged whodunit. The culprits, a local couple, are revealed early on. Instead author Monica Hesse paints a vivid portrait of a struggling rural community that is both divided and united by the baffling crimes. Eby briskly delivers the background information that sets the stage for the onset of the fires. When quoting firefighters, investigators, and citizens, Eby uses a range of Southern accents that ring true and humanize the community. Her respectful approach mirrors Hesse’s treatment of the arsonists, who are presented as emotionally complex and morally gray. “–AudioFile