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A Novel
by Christine Murphy
When Sarah's only friend in her graduate program is found dead of an alleged heroin overdose, Sarah is forced back into the orbit of the man in their department who assaulted her. A hurtling ride of a novel—darkly funny and propulsive.
At a Ph.D. program in Southern California, Sarah and her best friend, Nathan, spend their time working on their theses, getting high, and keeping track of the poor air quality due to nearby forest fires. No one believes Sarah when she reports a fellow student for raping her at a party—"He's such a good guy!"—and the Title IX office simply files away the information, just like the police. Nathan is the only person who cares.
When Sarah finds Nathan dead of an overdose from a drug he's always avoided, she knows something isn't right. She starts investigating his death as a murder, and as the pieces fall into place, she notices a disturbing pattern in other student deaths on campus.
As a girl, Sarah grew up in the forests of Maine, following her father on hunts, learning how to stalk prey and kill, but only when necessary. Now, she must confront a different type of killing—and decide if it can be justified.
Notes on Surviving the Fire is a story about vengeance, the insidious nature of rape culture, and ultimately, a woman's journey to come back to herself.
"[A] bold and complex thriller...Though the tonal shifts can induce whiplash, Murphy establishes a convincing sense of psychological realism while making salient points about the challenges women face in the aftermath of sexual violence. Readers seeking a tidy conclusion may be unsatisfied, but those in the mood for more challenging fare will be rewarded." —Publishers Weekly
"Fiery on many levels, Murphy's uneven debut nonetheless makes her an author to watch." —Kirkus Reviews
"Murphy's emotional, riveting suspense novel is sure to stick with readers for a long time." —Booklist
"A biting, savage, unflinching story of how the culture of sexual assault is systemically tolerated and tucked out of sight into the dark corners of ivory towers. Part campus satire, part murder mystery, and most importantly a tale of formidable survival, Notes on Surviving the Fire asks: who among us is a perpetrator, and how do we keep on living once we know? Christine Murphy writes with the nimbleness of a hunter: muscularly and with precision, while also propelled by undercurrents of cold, simmering fury and hot, big-hearted empathy." —Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West
This information about Notes on Surviving the Fire 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.
Christine Murphy has lived, worked, and traveled in more than a hundred countries, including living for eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. A trained Buddhologist, Murphy has a Ph.D. in religious studies. This is her first novel.
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