Fireworks

by: Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop

Published by: Vintage Contemporaries

Reviewed by Jamie Driggers

Hollis Clayton is sinking into the throes of desperation. Two years after the death of his son, while his wife has left for the summer, he is avoiding his editor, and becoming increasingly obsessed with the routine of children at play, a stray dog, and his glass of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey.

This is a haunting story of the way one man faces the loss of a child and the potential loss of a marriage. He is a lesson in contradictions: he maintains his hedge meticulously, but let’s his personal appearance go. He desperately needs and loves his wife, yet has an affair. And as he puzzles his life out, he obsesses about a local missing person’s case.

I’ll admit, when I started this book I had no idea where the author was going. I was intrigued, but lost. But as she flipped back and forth in time, I began to see a pattern develop in which all these seemingly unconnected pieces fall into place. Her voice and tone are perfect and make Hollis’ despair tangible.

There are entire passages about children and human nature that I have marked and continue to revisit because they are spot on—things that I know, but could never put into words. I also greatly enjoyed the fact that Hollis is a teller of “non-stories” and his story is composed of non-story after non-story, which all come together to be a very telling story.

I wouldn’t often highly recommend a novel about a man who is cheating on his wife and drowns his pain in Jack Daniel’s, but this book is just far too good, in a haunting way, to pass up.

Armchair Interviews says: Need a good read that makes you think, and rejoice in words well-written, try this one.