How to Set a Fire and Why

Lucia, a sharp-witted and deeply damaged teenager, navigates a small-town existence marked by expulsion, parental absence, and a strict personal code: do not do things you are not proud of. Armed with a Zippo lighter and a pocket of stolen licorice, she moves through a landscape of abandoned water parks, 24-hour donut shops, and a medical park island, all while seeking belonging in a secret Arson Club. The narrative is a chronicle of loss and misguided friendship, where the act of burning becomes a perverse form of agency and connection.

Jesse Ball’s prose is spare, darkly comic, and intensely observational, capturing the specific texture of adolescent alienation with a biting intelligence that refuses to sentimentalize its subject. The novel blends the mundane details of suburban decay with a psychological intensity that makes the protagonist’s fascination with fire feel both terrifying and inevitable. It is a study in how trauma distorts the search for community, rendered in a voice that is simultaneously detached and devastatingly honest.

Description adapted from Open Library ↗.