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Author Hesse, Monica, author.

Title American fire : love, arson, and life in a vanishing land / Monica Hesse.

Publication Info. New York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, [2017]
©2017

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Avon Free Public Library - Adult Department  364.164 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Non Fiction  364.16 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Bristol, Main Library - Non Fiction  364.1642 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Burlington Public Library - Adult Department  364.164 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Canton Public Library - Adult Department  364.1642 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  364.1642 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Cromwell-Belden Public Library - Adult Department  364.1642 HES    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Adult Department  364.16 HES    Check Shelf
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  364.1642 HESSE    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  364.164 HESSE    Check Shelf

Edition First edition.
Description 255 pages, [8] unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Contents "Charge that line!" -- "The South starts here" -- "Orange in the sky" -- Charlie -- Monomanie incendiaire -- Tonya -- "Like a ghost" -- "Tell us what you know about that" -- Charlie and Tonya -- Schrödinger's evidence -- The eastern shore arsonist hunters -- "I've seen enough ass to know" -- "Like hell was coming up through the ground" -- Tonya and Charlie -- "They're not hunters at all" -- "I didn't light them all" -- "Someday they'll go down together" -- "Everybody has a reason for why they do things in life" -- "I can't tell you something I don't know" -- "Midnight without makeup" -- The broken things -- "Time to wake up" -- Burned -- "We'd done it before" -- "They came out of everywhere" -- "Moral turpitude" -- What happened next -- "It's over"
Summary Documents the trial of a man charged with dozens of counts of arson in a rural Virginia county, sharing insight into his struggles with addiction, his relationship with his accomplice girlfriend, and the impact of the fires on their community.
"The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn't stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate--there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning. The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America....Though it's hard to believe today, one hundred years ago Accomack was the richest rural county in the nation. Slowly it's been drained of its industry--agriculture--as well as its wealth and population. In an already remote region, limited employment options offer little in the way of opportunity. A mesmerizing and crucial panorama with nationwide implications, American Fire asks what happens when a community gets left behind. Hesse brings to life the Eastern Shore and its inhabitants, battling a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. The result evokes the soul of rural America--a land half gutted before the fires even began." -- provided by publisher.
Subject Arson -- Virginia -- Accomack County.
Rural crimes -- Virginia -- Accomack County.
Accomack County (Va.) -- Rural conditions.
Accomack County (Va.) -- Economic conditions.
Accomack County (Va.) -- Social conditions.
Arson. (OCoLC)fst00815158
Economic history. (OCoLC)fst00901974
Rural conditions. (OCoLC)fst01101474
Rural crimes. (OCoLC)fst01101492
Social conditions. (OCoLC)fst01919811
Virginia -- Accomack County. (OCoLC)fst01204485
ISBN 9781631490514 (hardcover)
1631490516 (hardcover)
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