American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land
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 fires alone: 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.
- Author
- Monica Hesse
- Format
- hardcover
- Pages
- 255
- Publisher
- Liveright
- Language
- english
- ISBN
- 9781631490514
- Genres
- crime, audiobook, history, mystery, adult, journalism, sociology, biography
- Release date
- 2017
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