The Old Fire: A Novel

“Vivid and intriguing...Evokes unresolved family history with subtle heat.” —The New York Times

From National Book Award–winning author Elisa Shua Dusapin, a subtle yet powerful portrayal of family, secrets, and silence set against the backdrop of a crumbling house in the French countryside—perfect for readers of Katie Kitamura and Elena Ferrante.

Through the window, I can see a light inside.

Agathe leaves New York and returns to her home in the French countryside, after fifteen years away.

She and her sister Véra, who has not spoken a word since she was six years old, have not seen each other in all those years, and they carry the weight of their own complicated lives. But now their father has died, and they must confront their childhood home on the outskirts of a country estate ravaged by a nearby fire before it is knocked down. They have nine days to empty it. As the pair clean and sift through a lifetime’s worth of belongings, old memories, and resentments surface.

“A touching, mysterious novel, imbued with the beauty and strangeness of a fairy tale” (Aysegül Savas, author of The Anthropologists), The Old Fire is Elisa Shua Dusapin’s most personal and moving novel yet. An exploration of time and memory, of family and belonging, it is also a graceful and profound look at the unsaid and the unanswered, the secrets that remain, and whether you can ever really go home again.