Signal Fires opens on a summer night in 1985. Three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car, and, in an instant, everything on Division Street changes. Each of their lives, and that of Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives on the scene, is shattered. For the Wilf family, the circumstances of that fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken. In a risky game of poker (the kitty being the readership), Dani Shapiro plays these cards in her book Signal Fires: the Sentimental of Spades, the Sad of Clubs, the Nostalgic of Diamonds, and the Love of Hearts. Truly a dangerous game! I love character driven books and circuitous family dramas, but this felt absolutely directionless. And the way it jumped around from character to character and timeline to timeline only served to make me feel even more disassociated from the story (if you can even say there was one) and its players.

When the signal ignited along the Thames in the 1370s, it meant the French had landed, and every man age 16 to 60 was to take up arms and line the riverbanks. If not for its vast, mapped, centuries-old county-by-county beacon networks—like spiderwebs splaying out from the most vulnerable points of its coasts—the island may have been taken by Norse raiders, by France, by Spain, by Napoleon. Beacons helped make this vulnerable island defensible, and without them, it may not have remained England all this time. The health and safety of audiences, artists, creative teams and staff alike is of the upmost importance. All companies involved in the project will implement COVID secure measures to ensure that their full process, from rehearsal to performance, is in line with the current government guidelines, following strict hygiene protocols and allowing for social distancing. It is a story of a single tragedy of a family, a neighborhood, of relationships, and of how one event in a family's history can change everything.

Yeah,” Waldo says. He’s looking straight ahead, though not at anything in particular. “Everything is connected. Everything. The lady. The doctor. Me. You. It’s like we’re part of a galactic supercluster.” We made our way down the elevated cobblestone causeway built by monks in the 1200s. We passed the North Star, the seventeenth-century public house that the owner himself attempted to bulldoze some New Year’s Eves ago when the barman refused to serve him. As we neared the edge of town, dozens of neighbors funneled out of Steventon’s windy streets to a single path up the hillside.

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. Urgent and compassionate, SIGNAL FIRES is a magical story for our times, a literary tour de force by a masterful storyteller at the height of her powers. It's a luminous meditation on family, memory and the healing power of interconnectedness.

More from The Author

To say that I was eagerly and enthusiastically awaiting Dani Shapiro's first fiction book in 15 years was an understatement. Nineteenth-century English poet Thomas Babington Macaulay recounted their critical role in his fragment “The Armada,” about the night in August 1588 when Spain’s King Phillip sailed a massive war fleet on England. That night was as bright as day, Macaulay wrote, the entire country lit by beacon fires at every visible point. Other companies involved in Signal Fires: 45North, Actors Touring Company, ALP Musical, balletLORENT, Beyond Face, Big Telly, Boundless, Diverse City and Extraordinary Bodies, Eastern Angles, English Touring Theatre, fEAST, Fio in association with Tara Arts, Fen in association with Out of Joint, Fuel, Graeae, Headlong, High Tide, Highly Suspect, Kestrel Theatre Company, Kneehigh, Luxi in association with Hannah Bruce & Co, and Northern Rail, Middle Child, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, National Youth Theatre of Wales, New Perspectives, Pentabus, Pilot, Paines Plough, Potential Difference, Proteus, SBC Theatre, Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Slung Low, Spare Tyre, The Wardrobe Ensemble, This is My Theatre, Told by an Idiot, Wildcard and Yellow Earth Theatre.

So much more happens in this beautiful story, but it’s best to let it unfold. There are emotional moments, moments of regret and renewal, and an exploration of the ways we are inexorably connected. This is a quietly powerful novel, which reminds me of one of my favorite writers, Ethan Joella, and his ability to create emotion and drama from life’s simple moments. From the beloved author of INHERITANCE: "a haunting, moving, and propulsive exploration of family secrets” (Meg Wolitzer, author of THE INTERESTINGS). Presented at a time when it is not possible to physically tour, 45North, Arcade, Beyond Face, Big Telly, Boundless, Eastern Angles, English Touring Theatre, Fen in association with Out of Joint, Fuel, Graeae, Headlong, Hightide, Kestrel Theatre Company, Kneehigh, Macha Productions, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, New Perspectives, Pentabus, Pilot, Paines Plough , SBC Theatre, Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Slung Low, Spare Tyre, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and Yellow Earth Theatre (with more to be announced) are uniting for the first time, to collectively tour a single idea throughout October and into November.

Dani Shapiro

What a treat. I don't know of anyone who writes about family with the same generous understanding Gary Shteyngart

What is left to her? She rarely lets herself think this way, but something about this day is making her melancholy. That young family across the street with their new baby is at the beginning of a life that they think will last forever”. There are some touching descriptions and insightful portrayals of interpersonal relationship, but the book is marred by heavy-handed narration and a penchant for overtelling. For example, the book's central theme—that everything is connected—gets rehashed repeatedly instead of being allowed to emerge organically through the story. Meanwhile, the actual connections that link characters and events in the story can feel contrived, veering too far into the mystical to be credible, with altogether too many references to past and present selves merging, radiant beams of light, fields of energy, and invisible threads weaving people together."

Silence didn’t make it go away but instead drove the events of that night or deeply into each of them”. In a fascinating work of popular science, Gregg explores the enormous gulf between how humans and other animals experience the world. While we perceive our cognitive development and capacity for reasoning as advantages, Gregg persuasively argues that not only do they make us less happy, but can also lead to horrific acts such as genocide. Accessible and insightful, it’s a thought-provoking read. Love Marriage What's more, she chooses an unusual narrative arc in that it's not really an arc (don't tell Noah). If you even consider it a plot "climax," the event occurs around 60 pp. before the finish, making all that follows similar to an epilogue. To Shapiro's credit, she has built enough interest in her characters to keep most of her readers on board. Hell with the plot, the remaining crew seems to be saying, I want to know about these characters. There are soooo many books showcasing the "One Night, One Fateful Choice, Lives Changed Forever" theme (ugh!) and, quite frankly, other authors did it better than this author.