Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2019
160 pages
Genre: Graphic Novels
Publication Information
A Fire Story is an honest account of the wildfires that left homes destroyed, families broken, and a community determined to rebuild.
Early morning on Monday, October 9, 2017, wildfires burned through Northern California, resulting in 44 fatalities. In addition, 6,200 homes and 8,900 structures and were destroyed. Author Brian Fies's firsthand account of this tragic event is an honest, unflinching depiction of his personal experiences, including losing his house and every possession he and his wife had that didn't fit into the back of their car. In the days that followed, as the fires continued to burn through the area, Brian hastily pulled together A Fire Story and posted it online - it immediately went viral. He is now expanding his original webcomic to include environmental insight and the fire stories of his neighbors and others in his community.
"Starred Review. Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck." - Kirkus
"As striking as it is detailed." - Entertainment Weekly
"An effective snapshot of a broad disaster." - io9
"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
"A Fire Story is that most potent of accounts, both immediate yet timeless. Brian Fies's deceptively simple words and pictures drew me in from page one, then delivered a triple punch to the gut: clutching dread, followed by hollow despair, and ultimately quiet, unquenchable determination. You don't merely read this, you feel it." - Richard Pini, ElfQuest
"A Fire Story grabs you from the first page, drawing you in with its harrowing and uplifting tale of loss, survival, and the power of community. Fies is a master storyteller who uses his skills as a cartoonist to create deeply personal stories with lasting impact." - Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid
This information about A Fire Story was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brian Fies is a writer and cartoonist of the award-winning graphic novels Mom's Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? Although he lost his home, he and his wife are rebuilding in Santa Rosa, California.
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