Home Fires

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Radu’s first novel, Distant Relations (1989), won the QSPELL Prize for
Fiction and was shortlisted for the Books in Canada/W.H. Smith First
Novel Award. Four years later comes this character study of a pyromaniac
set in modern-day Montreal.

Nick, the protagonist, is a man with unusual thoughts (often expressed
in apocalyptic imagery): “Fire intensified, pain enhanced pleasure. In
paradox was truth, Nick had long ago realized. Purification and renewal
were only possible after destruction.” Nick’s motives for setting
fires are revealed as the plot progresses: his difficulty assimilating
into a francophone environment, his sexual compulsions, and his
dysfunctional marriage.

Other similarly wounded male characters include Brian, a habitual
devotee of newspaper personal columns, and Roger, a reformed alcoholic.
Radu’s women do not fare much better, with the notable exception of
Mariette, recently widowed and doggedly altruistic. Nick, in the end, is
consumed by the fires that he stokes within himself; he dies of a fever,
both physical and hallucinatory.

The incendiary imagery that abounds in this novel ignites the
reader’s imagination, serving up an intriguing read, particularly for
the psychologically inclined. Recommended for adult collections.