Those Who Favor Fire - Hardcover

Wolk, Lauren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679448497 ISBN 13: 9780679448495

Publisher: Random House (NY), 1999

Synopsis

The small community of Belle Haven is more closely knit than usual due to the ever-present mine fire that burns uncontrollably underneath the town and occasionally breaks the surface to claim a garbage can or beloved pet. A first novel. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review

Advance praise for Those Who Favor Fire:

"In Lauren Wolk's capable hands, the story of a close-knit community struggling to coexist with an underground inferno becomes a meditation on trust and betrayal, loyalty and freedom, and the necessary balance between loving and letting go. This novel is by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, but beautifully written throughout. A stunning debut."--Aimee Liu, author of Cloud Mountain

"Add all three of my names to a burgeoning list of fans: those who favor Lauren Wolk. Cozy as a country kitchen, this novel is, in part, a spice rack of a town remembered. Again I am home, inhaling bogs, barns, and Angela's muffins."--Robert Newton Peck, author of A Day No Pigs Would Die

"First-time novelist Wolk has conceived an engrossing plot and peopled it with appealing characters. [R]eminiscent of the best of Shirley Jackson."--Publishers Weekly

From the Hardcover edition.

From the Author

To the Reader
Ten years before I began to write THOSE WHO FAVOR FIRE, I read a brief newspaper article about a small town in Pennsylvania that was slowly being destroyed by an underground coal fire. I never forgot the image that the article evoked: of a community torn between the love of a place and the fear of dying along with it.

That image stayed with me for a decade, rising now and then in my thoughts much as coal fires themselves are known to do, and finally inspiring me to write THOSE WHO FAVOR FIRE. It is, primarily, a love story set in a fictional town called Belle Haven. But the struggle in which its characters are engaged--to hold onto their homes and, above all, to each other--reflects the actual challenges faced by dozens of towns across the United States where coal fires are burning. And the stubborn brand of love these characters have for their small patch of ground is mirrored by my own love of the Pennsylvania countryside.

I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Sincerely, Lauren Wolk

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0679448497
• ISBN 13: 9780679448495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 374