Instant Fires
Instant Fires
by Andrew Meehan
An absorbing and considered love story from the author of One Star Awake, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
Paperback | 312pp | ISBN: 9781848408364 | Release Date: 9th September 2022
In Heidelberg, Germany, over the course of a hot week in July, two gentle souls begin a prelude to love, testing the pull of romance against the weight of their family histories.
After fifteen years in a relationship with a man she did not love, Ute Pfeiffer has returned from Ireland to find her father, Julius, in decline and her mother, Christa, more distant than ever. The last thing she needs is to fall for another Irishman. But when she sees Seanie Donnellan driving over a hen in her parents’ yard, something seems to shift in her cautious heart.
Ute has given up on love and Seanie has never really known it. He also knows nothing of her family’s unspoken history during the war, nor how Ute muted this sadness with a sheltered life that she hated. But Seanie is a strange and charming young man with emotional aches of his own, confounding all of her expectations and daring her to hope for the first time.
As her father returns to a kind of childhood, and her mother’s longing spills over in the revelation of a family secret, Ute must decide if falling in love is something that happens to other people or if it’s a choice only she can make.
Praise for INSTANT FIRES:
“Stylish, very funny, and moving - he’s a true original, and this is his best work to date.”
“Just magic. INSTANT FIRES is another gorgeous exemplar of Andrew Meehan’s exquisite, extraordinary prose, and his instinct for love and soul and life in all of its hues and heartaches.”
“Cerebral and tender, a tapestry of glimpses. This is a remarkable novel from one of our finest, most fastidious prose stylists”
“Polished prose and soulful characters make this an absorbing and interesting read.”
“...a wonderful read; a strange but compelling story written with great lyricism and insight.”
“Beautifully written, delicate, mesmerising - wears its context with such a light but precise touch. I found it a subtly enchanting & very ‘grown-up’ read.”
Photo credit: Concept and Graft.
Andrew’s short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Moth, Banshee and Winter Papers, and in TOWN & COUNTRY: The Faber Book of New Irish Stories. His debut novel One Star Awake (New Island) was longlisted for the 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize, the UK's most prestigious award for debut novelists. It was described by Sue Leonard in the Irish Examiner as ‘mesmerising, inventive, heart-wrenching, and brilliantly realised.’
His second book, The Mystery Of Love, a unique and moving reimagining of the relationship between Constance and Oscar Wilde, was published in 2020. Alastair Mabbott wrote in The Herald that ‘The Mystery of Love lives up to its Wildean title, forensically examining the bond that endures in a marriage which is in almost every other way dysfunctional. And while it must be daunting to take on the master of the epigram, Meehan rises to the challenge, liberally dousing his text with irresistibly resonant and quotable passages.’
Andrew is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Prior to writing fiction, he worked for many years in script development, most notably at the Irish Film Board where he nurtured numerous Irish feature-films, including the Oscar-nominated animated feature Song of the Sea and the ground-breaking comedy Good Vibrations. Andrew also writes screenplays, and film adaptations of One Star Awake and The Mystery of Love are in funded development. He was born in Dublin and lives in Glasgow with his partner Áine Prendergast, a scientist.
“Ute Pfeiffer and Seanie Donnellan lived for many years in separate notebooks. Only when I moved to Heidelberg, Germany, and put them in the same notebook, did Instant Fires come to life. I used to live in Heidelberg with my partner, and our years there were like a time out of life. As we were getting ready to move to Glasgow, I started to put Ute and Seanie into the shape of a novel. The whole experience of writing it was like holding on the last days of an important summer. Instant Fires is my third book, but in my love for Ute and Seanie, and my enjoyment in their company, it feels like my first. This is another reason why I am so happy to back working with New Island Books, with Aoife K. Walsh and the whole team. They have built an enviable list and they bring manuscripts to life in such interesting ways.”
Gratefully supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
