Set against the backdrop of escalating environmental collapse, this novel is a timely exploration of the terrifying consequences of climate change—particularly wildfires. A feverish and unsettling meditation on climate collapse, Arson is told through the fragmented perspectives of two individuals struggling to make sense of a world consumed by fire. An unnamed narrator, a writer plagued by anxiety and writer’s block, watches as the planet, her relationships, and even her ability to dream are ravaged by environmental disaster. Meanwhile, an insomniac scientist, obsessed with tracking wildfires, clings to data as his last grip on control, meticulously recording every flame that devours the forests. Their narratives unfold in a disorienting rhythm—one slipping between lyrical introspection and panic, the other drowning in statistics and methodical observation. As fires rage across the planet, both search for meaning and survival: the narrator wanders the charred countryside in search of life amid destruction, while the scientist compulsively documents landscapes that should never be burning. Echoing Ingeborg Bachmann’s famous words, “With my burned hand I write about the nature of fire,” Laura Freudenthaler crafts a haunting, kaleidoscopic portrait of a world on the brink. Arson is not just a novel about climate change—it is an urgent, dreamlike reckoning with our fascination and horror at the beauty and devastation wrought by fire.
