I’d not long read Dani Shapiro’s memoir of discovering that her beloved father was not her biological parent, when I spotted her new novel on NetGalley. Identity and family are the overriding themes running through Inheritance and the latter is to the fore in Signal Fires which follows the Shenkmans and the Wilfs who live opposite each other on Division Street, a family neighbourhood in which the Wilfs have spent forty years of married life.
It will become the deepest kind of family secret, one so dangerous that it will never be spoken.
Ben and Mimi moved in when she was pregnant with Theo, two-year-old Sarah struggling up the steps of their new home. Sarah will be the bright star of her school year while Theo struggles to keep up. One day when she’s seventeen and he’s fifteen, Sarah tosses the car keys to Theo so that he can impress Misty, the girl he has in his sights. The result is disastrous: Misty suffers fatal injuries when Theo drives into a tree, Ben’s reputation as a doctor is irreparably damaged and Sarah takes on a responsibility for an accident which Theo knows is his fault. In an unspoken agreement, the family steps back from discussing this catastrophe thereby adding to a burden already almost impossible to bear. By the time the Shenkmans move in opposite, Alice heavily pregnant just as Mimi was, the neighbourhood has changed, no more kids playing on the street or neighbours passing the time of day. When Alice goes into premature labour, Ben saves their son in the nick of time. It will be years before Waldo learns of this bond between himself and Ben, one which will be a comfort to them both.
It feels as if the house she was raised in were nothing more than an elaborates stage set. Now the play is over. The reviews are in.
Shapiro pursues several timelines, unfolding the stories of these two families from the point of view of their members. Themes of family, grief, and interconnectedness underpin their narratives which lay bare the damage done by secrets and lies even in the best adjusted families. These are ordinary people, comfortably off with a bright future to look forward to, yet just one foot wrong – a teenage desperation to impress – destroys one life and indelibly scars several others, all made so much worse by a tacit decision to never speak of it again. Shapiro is an expert storyteller, neatly interweaving the threads of her story and giving each of her characters a clear voice of their own. Written with compassion and empathy, Signal Fires begins with tragedy but ends with hope and a pleasing redemption. Delighted to find that Shapiro has a nice long backlist to explore.
Chatto & Windus: London 9781784744960 304 pages Hardback (Read via NetGalley)
Sounds compelling and emotional, and the fact that it ends on a hopeful note is certainly encouraging.
Indeed it is!
Goodness, this sounds dark. Still, if well-told and ending positively, it looks worth investigating.
It is dark, I’m afraid, but there’s redemption in spades to compensate for that.
I do like a redemption narrative! This sounds ambitious but so well done.
Oh, me, too! I’d love to see more of it in real life politics.
This sounds worth it! Though I giggled when you said “stepped back”….a phrase synonymous now with that red-haired prince who quit (“stepped back”) LOL
Ah, well, I don’t keep up with all that!
It’s good to hear there’s redemption in the air for these complex family stories.
Always a pleasing narrative arc for me.
I’ll look out for this – I’ve only read her memoir, Inheritance, and thought it was really interesting (but was surprised by negative comments on Goodreads, along the lines of ‘Boohoo, get over it’).
Such empathetic readers! I read this one because I enjoyed Inheritance which I thought was both interesting and honest.