Tinderbox (37 page)

Authors: Lisa Gornick

BOOK: Tinderbox

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The spring after a forest fire, Talis has told her, is always gorgeous. Lush from
the nutrients unlocked by the burn, the razed land fills with a riot of wildflowers.
Larkspurs, poppies, and hyacinths thriving on the nitrate remains. Sweet peas, lupines,
and paintbrushes. Berries and grasses. Vines of wild cucumbers, bulbs of pink onions.
A tempest of crimson, lavender, and gold. A feast for hummingbirds, woodpeckers, and
deer.

In a few seasons, the underbrush grows thick again, a new tinderbox. Lightning strikes,
flames dance through the fallen branches and nimble saplings, and then, again, yellow
forget-me-nots, pink snapdragons, blue Canterbury bells.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to a number of sources for background information critical to this novel.
For my understanding of the Jewish community in Iquitos, Peru, and the links with
Moroccan Jewish communities, I drew heavily on Ariel Segal’s
Jews of the Amazon: Self-Exile in Paradise
and Susan Gilson Miller’s “Kippur on the Amazon: Jewish Emigration from Northern
Morocco in the Late Nineteenth Century” in
Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era
, edited by Harvey E. Goldberg. Daniel J. Schroeter and Joseph Chetrit’s “The Transformation
of the Jewish Community of Essaouira (Mogador) in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,”
also from Harvey E. Goldberg’s anthology, and Daniel J. Schroeter’s “Jewish Communities
of Morocco: History and Identity” in
Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land
, edited by Vivian B. Mann, were invaluable sources on the history of the Jews of
Essaouira. In the Mann anthology, Moshe Idel’s “The Kabbalah in Morocco: A Survey”
and the photographs in the incorporated catalog helped me to understand the meanings
and varieties of hamsas. Although we did not meet until the near completion of this
novel, I am grateful as well to Jorge Abramovitz, president of the Sociedad de Beneficencia
Israelita (Kehila de Iquitos), who generously allowed me to interview him and provided
introductions to other members of the Iquitos Jewish community.

My interest in the politics and ecology of fire was ignited by both my experience
rafting under the expert guidance of Gary Lane on the Salmon River in Idaho during
the wildfires of 2000 and reading Richard Manning’s
New York Times
op-ed piece “The Politics of Fire” (August 24, 2000). My understanding of this topic
and of the history of smoke jumpers in America was enriched by Stephen J. Pyne’s
Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire
,
Ashes to Wildflowers: A Promise of Renewal Springs from Destruction
by Wayne P. Armstrong, and the websites of both the National Smokejumper Association
and the McCall Smokejumpers.

Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great American Westerns
by Michael F. Blake,
The Western Genre: From Lordsburg to Big Whiskey
by John Saunders, and
The Searchers
by Edward Buscombe were all important sources with respect to Westerns, and
Herzog on Herzog
, edited by Paul Cronin, provided invaluable material about the making of
Fitzcarraldo
. For helping to unlock the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, credit is due to
Essential Frank Lloyd Wright
by Caroline Knight and to
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan.

I am indebted as well to the report of the International Society of Hair Restoration
Surgery on their pro bono Operation Restore, and to their member Dr. Antonio Mangubat
for a phone interview regarding his work with tissue expansion in cases of scalp burns
in pediatric patients. Other sources include Dr. Robert L. Sheridan’s article “Skin
Substitutes in Burn Care” in the
Karger Gazette
no. 67 (August 2004) and Dr. Monique Aurora Tello’s article “Eyes Wide Open” in
Yale Medicine
36, no. 4 (Summer 2002), an account of her treatment of a three-year-old burn victim
in Guatemala City.

Thank you to Dan Cahill, Henry Dunow, Anne Edelstein, Claire Flavigny, Selin Gulcelik,
Dan Piepenbring, Jane Pollock, Jill Smolowe, Meg Spinelli, and Lucy Stille for their
generous feedback at various stages of this manuscript; to Rebecca Ascher, Jessie
Byrnes, Mark Epstein, Jenny McPhee, Linda Morton, Shira Nayman, Susan Scheftel, Arlene
Shechet, Ana Sousa, Nancy Star, and Barbara Weisberg for their help and sustenance;
to the wonderful caregivers of my children—Mag Brown, Bernadine Roberts, and Glory
Khan—who through the decades have given me the peace of mind necessary to focus on
my work; to the amazing Montclair Writers Group for their sisterly support, wisdom,
and humor; and to the Gornick family—Fred, Janet, Marian, and Vivian—whose narrative
gifts raise the bar on what constitutes a story. Without my loyal agent, Geri Thoma,
who has impeccable taste and believes in novels for grown-ups, and my fiercely independent
and breathtakingly intelligent editor, Sarah Crichton, who knows when to reach out
and when to say enough, this book would never have found its way into print. Finally,
a bottomless thank-you to my husband, Ken, for gifting me the time to work on this
novel, and to my sons, Zack and Damon, voracious readers and artists both, who teach
me something new every day.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Gornick is the author of the novel
A Private Sorcery
. Her stories and essays have appeared widely, including in
The Agni Review
,
Prairie Schooner
,
The Sun
, and various psychoanalytic journals, and have received many awards. She has a B.S.
from Princeton and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale, and is a graduate of
the writing program at New York University and the psychoanalytic training program
at Columbia. She lives with her family in New York and is completing a collection
of linked stories.