Fireman

Oh, Joe Hill. You’ve yet to write something that I didn’t eagerly devour. The Fireman is the story of a global pandemic known as Draco Incendia Trychophyton, or Dragonscale to the layperson. It’s a highly contagious disease, the method of transmission unknown, that first covers its host in surprisingly beautiful black and gold markings and later causes them to smoke and ultimately burst into flames. With people spontaneously combusting all over the world, society breaks down and thus emerges the true horror of The Fireman. Told from the perspective of a compassionate nurse named Harper Grayson who eventually meets the titular Fireman who has learned to control the fire within his flesh, the true horror here it isn’t the rampant, fatal disease, it’s how people react to it and to those affected by it, both on an individual basis and collectively. This wasn’t my favorite Joe Hill novel. Heart Shaped Box and N0s4A2 are still tied for that spot, but I found it thoroughly freaky, vividly told, and almost impossible to put down.

The Fireman is a long book but every page was worth it. It shows both the best of people and the worst of people, with some amazing characters that cannot fail to illicit an emotional response, be it positive or negative.

It’s not action packed; I mean people fight but they are not all conveniently trained in martial arts or have a natural talent for beating people up. They use makeshift weapons and not everyone is confident with a gun. And when people are injured, they stay hurt for days, or weeks. It just feels more authentic, like they’re normal people struggling to survive.

I liked that the protagonist was a pregnant women and her pregnancy isn’t a hindrance. There are some characters that see the unborn baby as more important than what Harper wants but these are always treated with disdain. When the child is called “precious cargo” you know no one is endorsing that kind of attitude towards women. The pregnancy doesn’t define her, although maybe it contributes to her resilience. Harper’s pretty amazing.

So really the unique selling point of this novel is the disease, which is different but actually felt really plausible. There’s some science behind it that kind of makes sense. It’s not a virus but a spore and I could believe that there’s fungus out there that could self-combust, taking a person down with it, as well as excreting mind altering chemicals. I mean there’s a lot of freaky stuff out there in nature already.

What was really fascinating was the exploration of group acceptance. I vaguely knew about the existence of a “social media hormone” which is oxytocin. This hormone makes us feel good about group activities and being accepted by your peers. That’s why you get a little buzz out of retweets and likes. As the story progresses we see how the presence of this hormone affects people differently and it looks at the behaviour behind pack mentality and cults.

At one point, one of the characters likens them to zombies. When you think about it, in a traditional zombie story, the cremation crews would have been the good guys, killing the infected for the greater good of the remaining healthy humans. But here we see it from the infected’s point of view. At what point are those human rights withdrawn?

There are some brutal deaths, both intentional and accidental, but instead of a gore fest they all matter. It’s a very people driven story and I did feel that it highlighted the pointless tragedy of it all.

The characters aren’t scared of referencing pop culture, books and so-forth, just like people probably would. You’ll probably be searching for a Bradbury link with the title and the opening quote… Maybe there’s a little of that pack mentality in both. Camp Wyndham must a reference to John and I think it shares some of its empathy with his “cosy catastrophes”.

Review copy provided by publisher.