‘Fire’ by John Boyne

The third instalment of John Boyne’s Elements quartet, Fire, brings us the story of Freya, a character who played a minor role in Earth, now centre stage in a short novel that feels both more dramatic and more heightened than the previous two entries in the series—Water and Earth—both great. This isn’t a book grounded in gritty realism so much as one that leans into the operatic tone that Boyne often favours. And that’s not a complaint.
Freya is a plastic surgeon who treats burns victims. She also has a traumatic childhood and some very dark secrets in her adult life—though perhaps ‘secrets’ is too gentle a word for what unfolds. I didn’t find her especially believable as a character: she seemed more like a caricature of a cold-hearted young female surgeon than a person I could imagine meeting in the real world. If she was meant to be morally ambiguous, then that nuance didn’t land for me.
That might sound like a deal-breaker, but oddly, it wasn’t. Boyne’s writing is so propulsive and absorbing that I found myself tearing through the book regardless. It fits so neatly into the world established in Water and Earth that I didn’t mind the unreality of it.
The other two books felt like realistic explorations of the long-term effects of abuse; Fire felt like an exploration of that same topic, albeit filtered—at times—through Hollywood rather than reality.
I particularly enjoyed that characters from both earlier books turn up, which gives the whole project a pleasingly cohesive feel. It really feels like one novel in four parts, rather than four loosely connected short stories.
One character who stood out to me was Aaron, a medical student undertaking a three-month elective under Freya’s supervision. Unlike Freya, Aaron felt like a believable and relatable character. Despite Freya’s coldness and occasional cruelty, Aaron remains diligent and focused on his patients. His resilience and empathy provided a grounding presence in the narrative, and I ended up more invested in his journey than Freya’s. Interestingly, Aaron is set to be the protagonist of Air, the final book in the series, which has only heightened my anticipation.
Freya’s medical work, especially her treatment of burns patients, takes a backseat to the drama. It didn’t add much psychological depth, nor did it feel especially explored, though this may simply be a limitation of the novel’s short form. I found myself wondering whether readers outside of medicine might see more virtue in her profession and read that as a redeeming aspect of her character, which might have made this feel more real and less Hollywood: a bit of moral ambiguity goes a long way to creating a sense of reality.
I enjoyed Fire every bit as much as the earlier books, if not more, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how Air brings everything together.
Boyne’s quartet is turning out to be a rather interesting experiment. He’s always been a writer more interested in character than plausibility, and the emotional through-lines of these books—abuse, identity, the gap between surface and reality—feel increasingly well-woven. I’ll be fascinated to see where it all lands.
This post was filed under: What I've Been Reading, John Boyne.