Thursday, May 25, 2017

Fire Color One

Absolutely amazing. Fire Color One by Jenny Valentine is named after this painting:Image result for fire color one

http://en.artintern.net/index.php/news/main/html/1/1933

This painting is by Yves Klein. You may not see it at first, but if you look closely, you can see the outlines of two human figures. A beautiful painting, and a beautiful book. Fire Color One is the story of Iris, a girl who has just had to move back to Europe with her mother (Hannah) and her mother's boyfriend (Lowell), due to money problems in the United States. They also moved after Iris committed arson by burning down her school. Fire is her escape. Iris is struggling with the fact that she has been separated by her friend, Thurston. Thurston was the only one who understood her and stories about how they met and what they did together are slowly revealed throughout the novel. Many years before, when Iris was two or three, Hannah left Ernest (Iris' biological father). He lived in Europe, so once they moved back there, she gave him a call.

It turns out that Ernest was actually dying of some disease. Hannah and Lowell are ecstatic, thinking that as soon as Ernest dies, they will collect his many extremely valuable paintings and become rich. Iris doesn't really care about him at first. She doesn't even remember him. She thinks she should feel sad, but can she really feel sad for someone she doesn't know? So they all go to visit Ernest. Almost immediately, Iris and Ernest have a connection and Ernest tells her many rather interesting and some unexpected stories of his life. The end of this is unexpected and wonderful. Fantastically made. I'm not sure if Valentine could have made this book much better.