Dusapin’s novel depicts the heavy silence that has fallen between two sisters who love and understand each other but who can no longer connect. The characters struggle to find peace with their life choices and roles in one another’s lives. The Old Fire questions how an individual is defined by place, family, loss, and abandonment and how those definitions can impede growth and happiness. A quiet novel whose impact on the reader is anything but quiet.
The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin, (List Price: $27, S&S/Summit Books, 9781668212219, January 2026)
Reviewed by Lera Shawver, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina