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Summary and Reviews of The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

The House Is on Fire

by Rachel Beanland
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 4, 2023, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2024, 384 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

The author of Florence Adler Swims Forever returns with a masterful work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night—told from the perspectives of four people whose actions during the inferno changed the course of history.

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It's the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia's gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city's only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that's done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church.

On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes, sits newly-widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn't give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater's managers, he'll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he'll have to buy her freedom first.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.

Based on the true story of Richmond's theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

In a time and place in history from which the voices of powerful white men are almost all that have been preserved, Beanland chooses to center these characters, who live outside power and influence, to explore the dichotomy between the experiences of Black and white residents as well as the experiences of women and men. One striking disconnect is the lack of heroism displayed by men trying to escape the fire—at the cost of the lives of the women their cultural norms require them to protect—and the fawning praise heaped upon them in the media...continued

Full Review (798 words)

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(Reviewed by Kathleen Basi).

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Beyond the Book



Underrepresentation of Women in News and Media

Renaissance-era oil painting depicting Mary Magdalene holding a golden-stemmed cup In The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland, the character Sally grows increasingly disgusted by the way men's actions on the night of the 1811 Richmond theater fire are glorified in the local media, while women's experiences go completely unnoticed.

As far back as Biblical times, women in much of the world have been underrepresented and misrepresented in various types of media, and therefore historical records. Think of Mary Magdalene—a woman who, according to one gospel account, was a companion of Jesus and one of the first people to learn of the Resurrection. Early Church leaders rewrote her story, conflating her with an unnamed woman from the Gospel of Luke and depicting her as a sinner who washed Jesus' feet with her tears....

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Read-Alikes

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