Disaster fiction isn’t for everyone. During a major hurricane, pestilence, or flood, some who are personally affected and unsure of the outcome will read or watch everything they can about it. Others go out of their way to avoid the topic.
The wildfire devastating Los Angeles feels more personal to me than most catastrophes. I’ve hiked in Eaton Canyon, where a major part of the fire began. I’ve stayed at a friend’s house in Altadena, now in ashes. But the friend moved out years ago, no one I know is threatened, and I’m not traumatized as people in the path of the flames might be. That lets me look forward to novels from the library about monumental fires of the past:
Image: A large fire in the night. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
2 Comments
Matt
1/27/2025 01:05:39 pm
Interesting. My house burned down in a previous large California fire over 30 years ago. And now this fire came within a couple of miles of where I lived in Pasadena, so it has affected many people at my former workplace there.
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1/28/2025 05:48:56 pm
Thank you for this, Matt. Thought provoking. I care about the human interest of people I know or have connections with, but not more generally. I do like particular stories that speak to me, like the person who (after the 1991 fire) told a journalist something like, "When we moved here, my wife said what she most wanted was a fireplace and an ocean view. Those are the two things we still have."
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AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin.
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