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Dec
29
Book Review: Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
2008 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
When Ash and Bits Kellerman were kids, their 6-year-old baby sister Alena was kidnapped and never found. Since then, their family has been locked in a struggle to cope (after all, as Bits tells us, “Alena was the irreplaceable one.”), to fight the urge to blame each other, and to deal with the ways in which each of them feels responsible for what happened. In Who By Fire, author Diana Spechler explores the complicated relationships between Bits, Ash, and their mother Ellie and examines their very different responses to the tragedy of losing Alena.
Bits, who was ten when Alena was taken and is now 23, deals with her pain by engaging in compulsive sexual behavior. She has sex with three different men in the first 25 pages of the book, and she later tells us that, from her very first sexual experience at the age of ten, sex “felt like the only way to dull the edges of things.” Ash, who is 20, has joined the Orthodox Jews (a group his sister and mother believe to be a cult) and now lives in a yeshiva in Israel. Their mother Ellie has joined a support group for people whose family members have joined cults, and she’s doing all she can to hold on.
What have I done to deserve this, I’d like to know? One child kidnapped, another meshugena, and Bits.”
The action in Who By Fire centers on Bits’s and Ellie’s efforts to bring Ash back from Israel, and ultimately, to reunite their broken family. The story is told in chapters alternating between Bits, Ash, and Ellie, and Spechler succeeds in giving each character a unique, recognizable, sympathetic voice.
Though readers may find Bits’s behavior reprehensible or immoral, we understand why she does what she does, even when friends begin to tell her that her coworkers suspect her of being a psychopath or “crazy like with a mental illness.” Bits knows that her “life is full of messes,” and it is clear that she recognizes her issues and would like to improve herself. Likewise, hearing Ash’s point of view on life in the yeshiva and his reasons for moving to Israel calls into question Bits’s belief that he has joined a cult and forces the reader to delve more deeply into understanding the characters. Ellie’s chapters are shorter and less frequent, and though she seems to be well-meaning but meddling, she explains her concern, saying
I know about mistakes, about how indelible they can be.
Who By Fire is all about mistakes: what constitutes a mistake, who is to blame, and how (or if) we recover from them. Spechler allows us to see each of the three main characters struggling to answer these questions. From Bits:
Would Ash have gone to Israel if he didn’t blame himself for Alena’s disappearance, if our father had never left us, if our mother had handled things differently?
And later:
You can make yourself crazy, you know, with questions. Everyone’s a little to blame for everything.
One of the main foci of the book is Bits’s trip to Israel to “rescue” Ash from the yeshiva. Ash has cut off contact with his family, believing that they do not understand his purpose, and while this supports his family’s theory that he has joined a cult, he tells us that he knows he is searching for acceptance, fellowship, and an opportunity to atone for what sins he believes he has committed. He is searching for connection.
I’d been consumed…by the feeling that every person I saw was unreachable, as though I were walking through an aquarium, past glass barriers and tight-knit schools of fish. In my old life, I usually felt like that.
Life at the yeshiva provides him with community and comfort and, seemingly, a chance to start over, to try to let go of the guilt he feels for Alena’s kidnapping.
This is my life. Israel is my life. God is my life. Not Bits. Not my mother. Alena is gone. We can’t bring her back. Not with blame. Not with a funeral. Not with a family reunion.
It is not always an easy life, particularly when Ash becomes involved with a mysterious and troubled girl named Monica, who causes him to question his beliefs and tests his strength.
As Bits travels to Israel to find Ash, Ellie becomes involved with a man named Jonathan who says he can help her rescue and “deprogram” Ash. Ellie is so transfixed and infatuated with Jonathan—and so desperate to save her son—that she gives him more than five thousand dollars for the “rescue mission” and becomes sexually involved with him, causing her sister to remark that she seems “brainwashed.” The addition of this storyline, which raises themes that closely parallel what’s going on with Ash, gives Who By Fire increased depth and begs the question of whether neediness and weakness to persuasion run in the family. Ellie’s voice is so sympathetic because she is talking about the same feelings and desires Ash is talking about, and though they appear to be seeking satisfaction through different methods, they are actually quite similar.
Spechler’s writing is crisp and compelling, and this book was very hard to put down. The changing points-of-view and the well-paced story make Who By Fire engrossing, compulsively readable, and thoroughly enjoyable. Spechler gives added layers of complexity by allowing us to wonder about the real significance of the characters’ names and relationships, as they all learn a valuable lesson:
Here’s what happens when you try to rescue someone: you find out you’re the one who needs rescuing.
Though the story comes to a fairly neat resolution, one is left with the feeling that Bits, Ash, and Ellie are still out there somewhere, working to understand what has happened to them and to resolve the issues of blame and forgiveness for the ways they have wronged each other. Who By Fire is a great read because of both its compelling and relevant storyline and Spechler’s strong grasp on plot, structure, and characterization, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys fiction that is about more than just a good story. 4.25 out of 5.
Special thanks to the author for giving me the opportunity to read and review this great new book.
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I like your site – I got a good laugh out of your adventures in bookselling pages.
Cheers,
Trevas
Great review, Rebecca! Sounds very compelling. I’ll keep an eye out!
Your reviews are fantastic. I can’t wait to read this one.
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[...] and I think that comes through in my reviews. When I come across characters named Bits and Ash in a book that is essentially about a family falling apart, you can bet dollars to donuts that I’m [...]
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