Fire is the third in John Boyne’s novella series preceded by Water and Earth both of which I’ve reviewed. It follows Freya, already an eminent surgeon at thirty-six, living alone in a luxurious flat, once the home of a footballer who she helped convict of rape as a jurist.
Since my twelfth summer, I have been consumed by fire, laying waste to everything and everyone around me.
Freya has been careful to distance herself from her colleagues, her only friendship with a nurse about to retire. Her specialisation is burns, chosen because so many turn away from disfigurement. Her success is all the more to be admired given her rackety childhood and the trauma she underwent aged twelve at the hands of privileged fourteen-year-old twins who’d spent the summer abusing her culminating in burying her for a night, afraid that she was about to reveal what they’d done. When she and her intern attend a four-year-old with burns that can only have been inflicted by an adult, she’s quick to blame his father, mistakenly so, as soon becomes clear. The scars of Freya’s own abuse have resulted in a toxic fallout of revenge perpetrated over years, a cycle which she seems incapable of escaping.
‘Come on, Freya,’ said Arthur. ‘It was a joke, that’s all. A game. Don’t be mad at us.’
Abuse is the overarching theme of Boyne’s series. The first instalment, Water, explored the idea of collusion with Willow happy to enjoy the trappings of her husband’s job while blinding herself to his behaviour. In this instalment, Boyne asks whether abusers are born or made while also addressing the question of female abusers and the devastating legacy of abuse. Deeply damaged, Freya is a complex character, capable of humanity and concern for her patients but desensitised and calculating away from work. Boyne explores these themes through a narrative which flashes back and forth between the present day and the summer of Freya’s ordeal, quickening the pace as events play out. It’s a gripping piece of fiction which leaves its readers with much to think about. I’m looking forward to Air, the fourth and final episode, which is due to be published in May next year.
Doubleday London 9780857529879 176 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)
