How Fire Runs

October 19, 2020
At the start of this spellbinding tale of violence and political conflict from White (In the House of Wilderness), Gavin Noon, the leader of a white supremacist group, flies a Nazi flag in front of an abandoned asylum the group is renovating in rural Elizabethton, Tenn. One morning, Gerald Pickins, a Vietnam War vet and county commissioner, sees the swastika and proceeds to fire his gun at a car backing out of the asylum’s driveway. This is the opening skirmish in a battle between the county’s progressives and the neo-Nazis. When a potential scandal leads Kyle, another country commissioner, to resign his seat, a battle for the vacant position ensues. The contest pits Black former football player Frank Farmer, a candidate supported by Gerald, Kyle, and their liberal friends, against Gavin, who’s running to gain influence in the community. To steer the election in his favor, Gavin leaks a disparaging story concerning Frank’s past. Tensions mount as the campaign intensifies, and events come to a bloody climax on election night. Well-drawn characters are matched by evocative prose. Socially conscious readers will want to check this out.

October 1, 2020
The Nazis do not get a warm welcome in Carter County, Tennessee. Gavin Noon and his group of white-supremacist thugs in the county's Little Europe are determined to push their way into local affairs. Soon, they have an opening, as part-time county commissioner Kyle Pettus has to step down due to his affair with a married woman. Gavin announces his intention to run for the seat, leaving Kyle and his friends to see if they can find a competitor with the courage to take him on and face the undercurrents of racism rooted in their community. The candidate is reluctant to put his family at risk, but even more opposed to letting hate win. As Election Day nears, people with scores to settle unleash a chain of events that could lead to the destruction of the entire area. With artfully complex characters, including a Little Europe ex-con hiding his relationship with a Black gay man, White's work captures the rhythms of rural life as they begin to beat faster in the face of calamity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)