The Fireman by Joe Hill is that kind of book that the ratings are vary a lot (in Goodreads only 31% rated it with 5 stars). I downloaded it because it was on a 100% discount and also out of curiosity to read something by this author. I was in the mood to read something different, suspense or horror. I’ll start by saying: I didn’t like it, I think it is a not so good novel. It’s a bowl full of nonsense, combining everything that is typical of Stephen King’s (Joe Hill’s father) books: pandemic that decimates humans, religious fanatics, white supremacists trolleying around trying to kill everyone, sick people who discover that the disease can be used as superpower — this looks like it came out of a young adult novel — and a crazy psychopathic stalker, who goes to hell only to chase the story`s heroine, a sweet girl nextdoor. All of this mounted on top of a lot of fiction`s writing cliché . I was stunned when I found out that the novel won a Goodreads Choice Awards in 2016 for best Horror.
The central character is Harper, a sweet nurse who worked at an elementary school when a strange disease plagues the United States and the rest of the world. The disease, called Dragonscale, causes contaminated people to spontaneously combust, burning everything around them. The country succumbed to the flames and no one discovered how the disease was transmitted, nor how to cure it. After Dragonscale finally appeared in her hometown, Harper goes to work as a volunteer in the local hospital that takes care of the contaminated ones, until the place burns down, killing patients and health professionals. A few weeks later, she finds out she has been infected and her husband, who was a very loving and caring man, freaks out and becomes a real dick. A week before she starts to show the characteristic symptom — black and gold curlicues on the skin — Harper found out that she was pregnant.
From this moment on, the story gets more and more crazy. A firefighter, a teenager and a child that Harper helped at the hospital rescued her when her husband decides he was going to kill her. Not before Harper read the manuscript of a novel in which her husband trashes her — and described all his cheatings with her friends — , apparently to show readers that he was always a dick. The trio takes her to a community where its residents discovered the magical powers of the Dragonscale and how they could enter the cult of Shine by singing together and thus not being burned to death. This Shine enables an extreme feeling of belonging and happiness, so much so that people ended up losing their individuality in favor of the community. Of course, the community would not be paradise and a lot of shit happens in the best religious fanatics style.
In the community, we get to know the Fireman, John, better, a character who helps Harper and the two end up very close. He has the ability to manipulate the fire arising originated from the Dragonscale in order to use it as a weapon: a superpower. He is the hero character who carries the weight of a pain, the death of his girlfriend, burned by the disease. In the course of the plot he goes on telling how that death happened. We also get to know the teenager, Allie, and the boy, Nick, who is deaf, children of his dead girlfriend. Their grandfather and aunt are also in the community, him being the leader and the aunt a kind of spiritual leader. She is the one who freaks out and tried to “fire the torches” against the ones who thought different of her.
The community ends up falling apart in part caused by all the oppressive way of ruling a community, and in part because of the group of supremacists, that discovered they location, and — look at that! — Harper’s ex-husband, who finally found out what he was good at (killing people with a Freightliner). The Firefighter, Allie, Nick, Harper and another character she met at the hospital survived and went after a government island where they are taking care of the sick people.
As I said, the plot is a tangle of ready-made formulas and clichés for constructing dystopia. Many chapters ended with “I hardly knew it would be the last time” and phrases of this type, which I particularly think this is an exaggeration of the use of this resource (to instate the reader to continue reading the next chapters). I thought the novel was made to became a movie — or series — like that kind we think is a bad one, but it ends up being a successful blockbuster and we watch it just for watching.
