Fire is both destructive and regenerative; at times vengeful, at others cleansing. The first mention of fire in Genesis comes after Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden. In Greek mythology, Prometheus steals fire from the gods for humankind. Fire becomes metaphorically layered—as knowledge, as desire, as anger. The book entertains the many strands of this fiery lineage as it undertakes a poetic investigation into grief and sex, loneliness and restlessness within intimacy, and language’s ability to make, unmake, and remake things. Hoffer engages in questions of gender, anger, and nationality—how women are made subject to expectations of care and fidelity. How Americans are called into conflicts that defy sense, that defy humanist values. The voice is angry as she struggles with the limitations of her agency and further frustrated that “speaking directly” does not seem to furnish progress or power. The book, then, tries to speak otherwise—it moves sonically, associatively, obsessively.
