Fire Sermon (Paperback)

Wily as a minnow when it comes to eddying human minutiae, Morris can never resist the grandeur of allegory and this is a homily about an old man's protest against the progressive evidence of irrelevance. Through the eyes of Kermit, a young boy almost old enough to wonder about life, eighty-three-year-old Floyd embarks on what will be his own defiant death. The orphaned Kermit is embarrassed by the old man's grumpy, settled ways. He is also lightly attached via mail to Floyd's sister Viola in Nebraska who corresponds with him affectionately. When Aunt Viola dies, Kermit and Floyd begin the trip from their California home in a crotchety Maxwell. A grossly amorous pair of hitchhiking hippies, Stanley and Joy, join them and, in the airless hiatus between generations, the boy finds his nervous loyalties divided. In Viola's deserted home, a graveyard of mementoes, Floyd appears to be another piece of debris. But when Floyd discovers Stanley and Joy cavorting nude, as usual, in Viola's bed, he sets the house on fire and disappears - a bird going off to die. The boy is now committed to a rootless life but somehow he is also aware of certainties, like an old ox shoe on earth and Uncle Floyd filibustering in heaven. Tight, skilled and occasionally moving, but a sermon for sure. (Kirkus Reviews)

"A radiant expression of the art [Wright Morris] has developed through thirty years and fourteen earlier novels. Although it is anything but preachy it will stick in the minds of the congregation for a long time. . . . On the one hand, this is a novel of alienation and on the other, a novel about the discovery of identity. The author's overall concern . . . is the destiny of man. In this novel--perhaps more clearly and movingly than ever before--he carries the reader with him, until astonishment, awe, compassion, laughter, and exultation mingle in a tragic sense of life."--Granville Hicks, "New York Times Book Review"

The ceremony of the old giving way to the new, the young breaking away from what is old, may well be the one constant in the ceaseless flux of American life. "Fire Sermon" reenacts this ceremony in the entangled lives of three young people and one old man. A chance meeting on the highway links a hippie couple to the eastward journey of an old man and a boy. For the boy it is a daily drama testing and questioning his allegiance. To which world does he belong? To the familiar ties and affections of the old or the disturbing and alluring charms of the new?

One of the most distinguished American authors, Wright Morris (1910-1988) wrote thirty-three books including "The Field of Vision," which won the National Book Award.

General

Imprint:	University of Nebraska Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 1979
First published:	September 1979
Authors:	Wright Morris
Dimensions:	203 x 133 x 10mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	155
ISBN-13:	978-0-8032-8104-2
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-8032-8104-8
Barcode:	9780803281042

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