Written in 1941, the manuscript of Fire in the Blood was entrusted in pieces to family and a friend when the author was sent to her death at Auschwitz. The novelβonly now assembled in its entiretyβteems with the intertwined lives of an insular French village in the years before the war, when βpeaceβ was less important as a political state than as a coveted personal condition: the untroubled pinnacle of happiness.
At the center of the tale is Silvio: in his younger years he fled the boredom of the village and made a life of travel and adventure. Now heβs returned, living in a farmerβs hovel in the middle of the woods, and, much to his familyβs chagrin, perfectly content with his solitude.
But when he attends the wedding of his favorite young cousinββshe has the thing that, when I was young, I used to value most in women: she has fireββSilvio begins to be drawn back into the complicated life of this small town. As his narration unfolds, we are given an intimate picture of the loves and infidelities, the scandals, the youthful ardor and regrets of age that tie Silvio to the long-guarded secrets of the past.
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