Book Review: Fire Shut Up in My Bones: A Memoir, by Charles M. Blow (2014)

 

Paperback cover of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, by Charles M. Blow, 2014.

Writer Charles M. Blow

I can’t remember exactly when I started reading Charles M. Blow’s Opinion pieces in The New York Times, but I quickly became a fan of his writing style and his point of view. When I saw this summer that Blow will have a book coming out in January, The Devil You Know: A Black PowerManifesto, I thought to myself “I’ll definitely read that book when it comes out.” Then I learned that Blow had already written a book, his 2014 memoir Fire Shut Up in My Bones. I decided I should read that book before The Devil You Know is released.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones details Blow’s childhood, growing up in rural Louisiana in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Reading the book was entering a world apart from my own childhood, and Blow paints a vivid and compelling picture of people struggling hard to just get by. Blow is a fantastic writer, and he has a knack for sharp characterization.

One of my favorite passages in the book was this vivid description:

“It was the time of day when the orange glow of the setting sun brushed the tips of the tallest trees, a few lonesome rays finding openings in the thicket and falling on lucky spots in the grass. It was the time of day when the lightning bugs were just beginning to sparkle against the velvet stretches of long shadows. I felt something move through me, taking with it all the pain and the questions and depositing peace in its wake.” (p.130)

Blow details the end of his childhood innocence when, at the age of 7, he was abused by his cousin Chester. The trauma that Blow experienced followed him long after Chester has gone from his life.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones follows Blow through adolescence and college, as he pushes himself to succeed in school, and worries about the visions he has of being attracted to men. Along the way, we get a vivid, brutal picture of fraternity pledging and hazing, which Blow endures as a pledge and then oversees as the President of his fraternity, before resigning in disgust at the end of his junior year.

The last chapter of the book feels rushed, as Blow lands and internship and then a job with The New York Times, where he is the youngest newsroom department head in the history of the newspaper. Blow also marries, has three children, and gets divorced, which is all detailed on a single page.

I don’t usually seek out memoirs, and honestly, I’m more interested in reading Blow’s thoughts about politics and civil rights in The Devil You Know, but if you want to know more about Blow’s own life, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a fascinating account of his childhood and adolescence.