Excerpt from The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The new theater has some nice upgrades: a real stage—with wings large enough to store even the most extravagant props and set pieces, an oversized pit, and a proper ticket booth. There is a separate gallery for slaves and free Blacks and plenty of box seats on the second and third floors for those who can afford them. The building is sided with brick, but it's clear the theater's managers cut corners on the finishings. They planked the lobby but left the rest of the dirt floors exposed; the boxes are sparsely furnished with a smattering of uncomfortable chairs and benches; the windows are so drafty they have to be boarded up during the winter months; and some nights, in this new space, the pitch of the crowd gets so loud Sally would almost swear the acoustics were better at The Swan.

When Sally, Margaret, and Archie near the theater, they find a large crowd gathered outside the building's double doors, waiting to get to the ticket booth inside. The exterior of the building is plastered with playbills announcing the evening's performance:

Last week of Performance this Season. Mr. Placide's Benefit. Will certainly take place on Thursday next, When will be presented, an entire New PLAY, translated from the French of Didurot, by a Gentleman of this City, Called THE FATHER; or FAMILY FEUDS.

"Isn't Diderot spelled with an e?" Sally asks, but Margaret isn't paying attention.

"Pardon us, excuse me. We've already got tickets, we're just trying to get inside." Margaret removes the tickets from her reticule and waves them in the air, as if they alone can part the sea of people that stand between the Campbells and the building's warm interior.

Inside the lobby, a Negro man wearing a short-skirted waistcoat inspects their tickets and directs the three of them down a narrow passage to an even skinnier staircase, which is crowded with people, everyone making their way to their seats on the second and third floors. As they file up the stairs, Sally pays attention to the other women's footwear. Most of them have worn shoes every bit as silly as hers.

"So, who's this mysterious 'gentleman of the city' who's translating Diderot?" Sally asks Margaret when they reach the first landing.

"I assume it's Louis Hue Girardin. He runs the Hallerian Academy. On D Street."

Sally doesn't know much of anything about Richmond's private academies, having spent her formative years in the country. "Is that the funny building that's shaped like an octagon?"

"That's the one," says Margaret before looking over her shoulder for her husband. "Archie, what was the story with Girardin? In France?"

"He was a viscount. A real royalist." Archie is already winded, and Sally strains to hear him. "Was about to be guillotined, by the sound of things."

"So, he fled to America?" she asks.

"Twenty years ago now," says Margaret. "Very dramatic escape."

"No wonder he likes Diderot," says Sally.

When they reach the second floor, Margaret looks at their tickets, but Sally stops her and points up at the ceiling. "Our box is on the third floor." Sally glances backward at her brother-in-law, who is bent at the waist, trying to catch his breath. "Sorry, Archie," she says.

On the following flight of stairs, the crowd thins some, although the echo of people's footsteps, combined with the buzz of so many conversations happening at once, still makes it hard for Sally to hear what Margaret is saying. "Girardin used to teach at William and Mary, but he's been here for at least a decade. Married one of the Charlottesville Coles. Polly. She's the middle daughter, I think. Anyway, I doubt Williamsburg agreed with her. How could it?" Margaret lowers her voice and Sally leans in. "Eliza Carrington was telling me she thinks the school Girardin's running barely keeps a roof over their heads, which is too bad because, from all accounts, he is quite brilliant."

"I would guess so," says Sally. "Diderot isn't easy."

Excerpted from The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland. Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Beanland. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.