Book Review: “Fire” by John Boyne

I love reading John Boyne’s books and as of yet, I think I’ve either read most of them or all of them. John Boyne is a fantastic writer and I often enjoy his darker novels such as “Crippen” and “The House of Special Purpose”. He’s written countless brilliant books but I think that the quartet he is currently writing about attitudes towards abuse is so brilliant.

So far we have seen “Water” which is a story about and narrated by a woman who had to move her entire life after her husband was found to be abusing children, and we have had “Earth” which is the story of two footballers on trial for rape and accessory to rape - the story is told from the perspective of one of the men on trial. Now we have “Fire” - a book about a woman who abuses children from a position of power, narrated by the woman in question.

Freya is a doctor who treats patients with burns through skin grafting. She is also a serial child abuser who takes it upon herself to r*** teenaged boys. It is disgusting and she is mostly a horrid person on top of this. As we learn more about her and engage with her past the main question she releases upon the reader is whether these events led her to become who she is.

My answer is no since therapy is a good way to deal with them and her sense of revenge is horrific, from a place of power and not to mention absolutely disgusting on every level. Boyne writes this character brilliantly as he presents to us this issue about morality where she doesn’t see the critical damage she is doing until she is forced to cover it up. It doesn’t make excuses for what happened to her, but her warped sense of justice makes her so unlikeable.

Her background includes a story about being abused by two older boys when she was just twel years old but then enacting revenge which begs the question of why she continues. I think that John Boyne does an excellent job of presenting the answer to us. She continues because she feels like she can. She continues because she takes joy from it.

This is what at the beating heart of the book makes her so complex and thoroughly hated by the reader. The other characters seem not to notice the weirdness of her life and yet, she admits to not actually being close with anyone. I wonder truly whether this woman is a psychopath. Though there are things in her past we definitely feel sorry for happening to her, there are also things that are really distressing that she inflicts on to others. A pattern of behaviour that will evolve into something much more terrifying.

Again, the author has written this book so brilliantly that I finished it in one sitting even though the themes were very difficult to read about due to their distressing nature. Thankfully, he does not get too graphic with the details. But one thing I noticed about the story is the way in which our main character interacts with her intern named Aaron and yet, fails to see something very important.

Her narrative is littered with her wanting to cover up from people, shed her mistakes as if she had never done anything and create this sense of power through reversing the narrative of who was in the wrong. I believe what the author is showing us is that strange time where things begin to fall apart everywhere. With the ending being what it is, I cannot help but think about the aftermath.

This book is another one of John Boyne’s masterpieces - he creates such strong voices for his characters that you often get lost in their words. In her mind, we know what has happened to her but then we are taken back to whether we can or should believe her since she has lied to practically everyone for such a long time.

I cannot wait for the next installment called “Air” because we might get a glance of her yet again as characters from the previous books have popped up in meetings and chance occasions throughout the series. For example, the apartment that Freya lives in once belonged to a footballer who went on trial for r*** and was found guilty. Yes, it’s the character of “Earth” popping up again.

All in all, the author has written a fantastic and disturbing book which though you clearly don’t want to look at it, you cannot seem to tear yourself away from. It’s like a morbid curiosity. Kind of the same feeling you get when you see a building on fire.