Signal Fires

Signal Fires, the latest novel by author Dani Shapiro is a small book but packs a big impact.  A person spends their life walking down a road with twists and turns along the way.

You never can see too far ahead, where each decision at an intersection might take you and how it changes and affects the rest of your life and those connected to you.

Following two families that live on Division Street in a small New York suburb, the book jumps between the present and the past.  Two families whose lives over time will intertwine. Starting in 1970, as a happy young couple enters their first home with two young children, full of happiness and hope about the future.  Dr Ben Wilf  and his wife bring up their daughter, Sarah and son, Theo in this small town.  1985,  a tragic car accident, the circumstances of that accident will become a dark secret, never to be spoken about.  

New Year’s Eve, Y2K, another new, young family on Division Street, with dreams of their future, as their son, Waldo, is born that night.  Our individual personalities that we bring to our relationships and how they shape our marriages, our children and the future.

Dr Wilf will comment that he feels we live our lives in loops. We carry our past with us like a series of Russian nesting dolls.  Who we have been and our actions are always there inside of us.  

The present 2020, a global pandemic and all the characters are adults now.  We learn the experiences of these families are connected and how the relationships  have all evolved over time and connected them to each other.  We also, throughout the book as it jumps back and forth, hear the story from the perspectives of the various characters, Ben Wilf, his wife, Mimi, Sarah, Theo, Waldo and his father.

Shapiro balances loss with love, and offers hope with grief.  This is a beautifully written novel that captures the reader and does not let go. It leaves you thinking about your life and the different actions and decisions that have brought you to where you are and made you who you are today.  The history of those who came before you intertwined with the strangers you have yet to meet.