A Fire Story - Hardcover

3 STARRED REVIEWS

“Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.” (Kirkus Reviews - STARRED review)

“Fies' personal, journalistic writing is more than matched by his massively appealing, bright, and pleasantly old-school comics style . . . Sometimes incorporating photographs and often communicating emotion with color, he affectingly relates the grief, rage, and powerlessness of losing one's home and possessions; each time he remembers another thing he's lost—home videos he'd been meaning to digitize, for instance—the pain feels brand-new again. Inviting, empathy-driven, and ultimately hopeful in the face of hardship.” (Booklist, Starred Review)

“‘On Monday, my house disappeared,’ begins this quietly devastating graphic memoir . . . Despite the pain he and his wife endure sifting through the ashes, Fies goes light on sentimentality, instead focusing on the realities of surviving the crisis and rebuilding literally from the ground up . . . Without pleading or preaching, this affecting record guides readers through the experience of enormous loss, then out through the other side.” (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

“...a full-length graphic novel that shifts between his own tragedy and the larger picture of how the blaze devastated his Santa Rosa community. Breakout stories spotlighting some of his neighbors deepen the book’s emotional tug.” (The Washington Post)

“Subtle and heart-wrenching.” (Press Democrat)

“As striking as it is detailed.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“An effective snapshot of a broad disaster.” (io9)

“Vibrant coloring and fascinating secondary stories create a gripping read that will attract graphic memoir fans and anyone seeking firsthand accounts of surviving a natural disaster.” (Library Journal)

“Brian Fies sat down with some Sharpies and some paper to process his pain the way he knows best. He began to draw. The result is A Fire Story . . . a webcomic that recounts the heart-wrenching devastation the California wildfires has wrought. Fies is a graphic novelist, one of the best in his field. A few years ago, when his mom was battling terminal cancer, he processed his grief by writing the comic Mom’s Cancer. It won an Eisner Award, one of the comic world’s highest achievements. Now he’s had to do it all over again.” (CNN)

“The unimaginable has been laid out on the page by author and artist Brian Fies. Brian’s own story provides the framework, but he also incorporates the vivid recollection of others to paint a picture of a horrendous night and its aftermath. A Fire Story is more than just a graphic novel, it is journalism and memoir at its best.” (Jean Schulz, President, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California)