Mill Fire
by Sally Nemeth

The mysterious causes and devastating effects of a steel mill explosion are seen through the eyes of a defiant young widow.“It’s a straightforward enough story, but Nemeth tells it in a way that stunningly recapitulates the crazy-quilt patterns of memory.

Creating a collage of time, sensation, inner thought and overt action, she twists the past and the present so that the intensity of pleasure, pain and loss becomes truly excruciating.

And in the process, she reminds us of how ephemeral life is, and how crucially important each minute should be, though, of course, never can be.”

—Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times (Chicago)“MILL FIRE is a tense, brooding piece, a cross between a thriller, a social documentary and a requiem … Nemeth’s subject is pain, whose precise causes may never be known, and she draws its map like a cartographer of hell.”

—Hugo Williams, The Times (London)