Signal Fires is a poignant, moving and beautifully written portrait of two families living on Division Street; a suburban American street where the families live quietly side by side and where everyone still has their secrets, crossing paths only occasionally but at the most pivotal times in their lives. Ben and Mimi Wilf, and their children Sarah and Theo, carry the weight of an accident from years ago; they bury it deep and never talk about it but it has had a resounding effect on Sarah and Theo’s lives in particular. They have gone on to have successful lives but cannot find peace. Young, gifted Waldo Shenkman and his parents live across the street, and carry their own secrets, regrets, unfulfilled expectations, and deafening silences. The difficulty of real communication within families lies at the heart of this story. 

One night, Ben and Waldo meet under the majestic old oak tree between their houses. As Waldo tells Ben all about the wonder of the constellations overhead, explored through an app on his tablet, which serves as a lifeline to him as he tries to navigate the world around him, he discovers a quiet sense of understanding, companionship and connection that he lacks with his own father; but this isn’t the first time Ben and Waldo’s paths have crossed. This encounter is just one part of the book where Shapiro beautifully conjures a real sense of every story being a tiny part of a greater whole, woven into the fabric of the cosmos which brims with the interconnectedness of life. The book opens with some beautiful passages illuminating the idea of chance, the butterfly effect, how there are always numerous possibilities in play, and how one small thing having gone differently would have changed the course of a person’s life.

Time in this story is somehow elastic, moving back and forth, and giving us glimpses at a given moment of what will follow on from this in years to come, before coming back to the present time, and then sometimes also referring to moments in the past; considering the ways in which past, present and future can sometimes manifest at once. This lends the story overall a somehow magical quality, and from one street comes a story that feels expansive, tapping into the universe at large as we follow the heartaches, the regrets, the struggles, the fierce loves, and the losses of these two families so inextricably linked, as their storylines cross time and again. 

I loved this book. There were some heart-wrenching passages about the enduring consequences of traumatic events, reverberating through our lives and shaping them, as well as the different ways people in relationships can experience loneliness and slip away from each other; but the compassionate approach to the characters in all their flaws as they learn and grow, the look at how the most unexpected of human connections can be the most profound, and the recurring focus on the wider connection to the universe at any given time, all imbue the story with a sense of wonder and uplifting hope. 

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Signal Fires is published in paperback on February 8th by Vintage. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

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Dani Shapiro is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Inheritance. Her other books include the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. In February of 2019, Dani launched an original podcast, Family Secrets, in collaboration with iHeartMedia. An iTunes Top 10 podcast, the series features stories from guests who – like Dani – have uncovered life-altering and long-hidden secrets from their past. Along with teaching writing workshops around the world, Dani has taught at Columbia and New York University, and is the cofounder of Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy.