As Seen In
The storytelling is both spellbinding and quietly devastating. The novel is ultimately about family and belonging, about the stories we need to know even when they threaten to burn our lives down.
Tommy Orange, author of There There
Does she remember this day? Does she remember it at all? Does she know this history—this story—her body holds secret from her?
From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine's Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth—from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there's always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It's the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
From award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty's debut novel is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.
"Utterly consuming... Fire Exit absolutely smolders."
Tommy Orange, author of There There
"A masterpiece... Talty is brilliant and this solidifies him as one of the best living writers today."
Debutiful
"Gorgeous. A genuinely original examination of the costs we pay to tell ourselves certain stories about who we are."
Brandon Taylor
"Does not shy away from blistering questions of belonging and identity, but rather leans into them, in taut, often precise prose."
The New York Times Book Review
"Absorbing and mythic... bristles with fiercely internalised feeling and enigmatic tension."
The Guardian
"Beautifully written, sometimes funny, often heartbreaking and hopeful against all odds. Reminiscent of Raymond Carver."
BookPage
Morgan Talty, a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation, is the author of the national bestselling and critically acclaimed story collection Night of the Living Rez, winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and the New England Book Award.
His writing has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Narrative Magazine, Harvard Review, Oprah Daily, and elsewhere. Talty is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine and on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA Program.
Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
National Bestseller • Stories
