After The Fire – Daniel Robinson

Harp paced between the front yard’s two sections. The soft pad of his feet on grass was interrupted by the click of his toenails on concrete when he crossed the sidewalk leading to the front steps. Barnes returned to his chair and sat back down across from Call. “You’ve got to face it,” Call said. He looked hard and straight at Barnes, his eyes flat and narrow but not unkind.

“You have to face it,” he repeated. “I know,” Barnes said, looking from Call down at the painted wood of the floor. Since last summer, since the fire that killed half his crew, he had felt left behind, a remnant left by life. “It’s not easy,” Call said.

“It will be the hardest thing you ever do, but you have to face what happened and accept that you did not cause it.” “I just keep asking the same question, though,” Barnes said. “I keep asking ‘Why?’” “Barnes,” Grace said from the lawn. Her body looked tiny and fragile. “Yes,” Barnes answered. “Just think about it.” With Ruth in the kitchen and Call upstairs reading stories to Grace, Barnes stood in the familiar theme of Call’s office. Although Call held a doctorate, he did not keep his diplomas on his wall.

Hung there were photographs of his time—his family and his war. He had returned from Asia with medals and wounds and dreams and nightmares, then returned to teach history at the university in Fort Collins. After retiring from teaching, he continued to read and write studies of the past in hopes of understanding the future. Mostly, though, and in the last handful of years, he listened for his granddaughter’s song.

Barnes stood in the arcs of light tossed haphazardly by the room’s floor lamps and studied the photographs hung on the office wall. The room was neither lavish nor ostentatious, nor was it naked or impersonal. Like Call, there was no single striking feature in the room, but everything, the oak desk to the photographs to the dark cherry bookcases filled with hardcover editions, was right, and each accented the others in simple dignity.

The single set of double-hung windows looked out onto the front porch and from there toward Mountain Avenue, a much quieter street when Call first moved his family into the house. A wardrobe-sized cabinet held rolls of maps in its cubbyholes, each map detailing elements of some European battle Call had written about.

The two leather chairs Barnes and Call often sat in to share Bushmills showed the dimpled impressions of their bodies.

Praise for Daniel Robinson and After the Fire “Literate and moving, [After the Fire] is as rich in character as it is in place. . . . Robinson’s writing engages you with a kind of terrible beauty. . . . [T]he courage in Robinson’s writing will lead him forward. This is a solid debut and clearly there are more to come.” —Bloomsbury Review “A touching debut. . . . [A] poignant story about the ‘pull of the past,’ affectingly warm and compassionate.”

—Publishers Weekly “A powerful, emotional story, one that will instill in readers a renewed appreciation for the heroic young people fighting wildfires.” —Rocky Mountain Post “The fire line scenes are so rich that you can smell the smoke, hear the clink of tools, and find yourself a part of the action. . . . Some of the fire line passages are priceless; some of the best stuff ever written about [fire] crews. . . . After the Fire is a very good first novel.”

—Wildland Firefighter “Here’s one of those remarkably mature first novels. The author has put together a story that’s dramatic, exciting, affecting, and memorable. . . . Robinson mixes memories of fire fighting with some intense psychological and philosophical ruminations. Robinson clearly has a storytelling gift, and that helps him keep the story grounded in everyday reality. A fine debut.” —Booklist “A brilliant, complex, engaging novel about a fire fighter, a Vietnam veteran, and a woman whose pasts intertwine with and impact their personal lives.

Barnes has lost comrades to a violent fire; Call also saw a fellow soldier die in Vietnam; and Ruth is experiencing a failing marriage. By skillfully using flashbacks and meaningful interactions, Robinson has created an intensely believable study of love, loss, and recovery in the face of life’s extreme tragedies. The final scene with Ruth’s daughter is moving and unforgettable.

After the Fire is a memorable first novel by an impressive writer.” —John Clark Pratt, author of Vietnam Voices “Daniel Robinson has written a fine book. It is peopled with vital characters engaged in a life of action. And, as in all fine books, the actions have universal consequences that the reader must listen to. Read it and understand more about the New American West, fire fighting, and life.”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 1aac89fb4812aa31
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,728,636 bytes (1.649 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781634503129, 9781634509695
• Pages: 167
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 310.78 minutes
• Total Words: 62,156
• Total Characters: 341,009
• Average Words per Page: 372.19
• Average Characters per Page: 2041.97

Most Frequent Words

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