The fire eaters

A severed ear, the flick of a Zippo lighter, the flash of fireflies across the night sky - what do these have in common? They are the imprints that define the world of The Fire Eaters, winner of the 1992 Associated Writing Programs award for the novel. Set in the Southwest from the 1960s to the 1980s, this is the quirky story of the Bell family, composed of one mother, eight children, and three fathers. We enter the family through the eyes of the youngest son. In Damon's world, an absent father swims like a fish through the boy's dreams; here, also, an older brother acts as model and protector, at least for a while. Ghosts from the past haunt the entire family: a mysterious death, bursts of rage, a secret racial identity. Yearning and loss affect them all, but the stubborn persistence of love is the thread whose magic lingers in the mind.