Before I Burn

Starred review from October 7, 2013
Finsland, a region of southern Norway, falls prey to a serial arsonist in Heivoll’s first English-language novel, which reads like a top-tier crime story. The narrative alternates between accounts of the crimes and the autobiographical entries of a young man named Gaute Heivoll, born around the time of the first fires and coming of age in their shadow. The arson story is based on a real Norwegian crime spree, further obscuring the distinction between fiction and nonfiction within the novel. The arsonist, Dag, is a folkloric figure, though a sinister one. The style of these chapters will be familiar to readers of contemporary Scandinavian crime fiction. The deadpan irony of the dialogue and fetishistic, but systematic, descriptions of the crimes are chilly and resonant, playing out provocatively against the first-person narrative of young Gaute. Through emotional highs and lows, triggered by challenges at school as well as the deaths of his beloved Granddad and Pappa, Gaute’s voice has an energetic and hopeful tone. It is Gaute’s early interest in fire that leads him, once he becomes a writer, to research the notorious arsonist. A compulsively readable novel about identity and the increasingly blurred line between art and reality.

November 1, 2013
One of Norway's most famous writers investigates a strange series of fires not by examining the ashes, but by looking in the mirror. This is not a crime novel. Except for being labeled a novel, it's not even clear that this ambitious experiment by European best-seller Heivoll qualifies as anything less than the purest metafiction. The author treats his subject (a series of fires started by a serial arsonist in rural Norway in the 1970s) as a highly complex meditation on the human condition and our collective predisposition to insanity. In fact, Heivoll has created himself as a character, letting himself play the narrator, a successful modern-day writer who was born just before the first blaze. At an Italian literary festival, this character, long estranged from his homeland, falls ill, and his fevered mind transforms the audience into the dead of Finsland, his hometown. And so, Heivoll the narrator launches into the work of exploring those frightening days and nights of fiery destruction. Other segments are sickeningly frightening descriptions of the fires themselves: "The whole room was ablaze," Heivoll writes in his first chapter. "The floor, the walls, the ceiling; the flames were licking upwards and wailing like a large wounded animal." Other times, the narrator poetically imagines the firestarter at his work: "He tiptoed in, went to the bathroom and washed, stood for a moment studying some cuts and grazes to his forehead; his fingers still smelled faintly of petrol. His eyes were radiant and the tiredness was gone. There was grass in his hair. He shut his eyes and saw the swallows circling in the smoke under the roof." It's revealed early on that the narrator is well-acquainted with the real identity of the madman; he's just more interested in the question "why?" than whodunit. Closer in tone to Francois Traffaut's Shoot the Piano Player or a Tom Waits song/story than an airport mystery novel.

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Starred review from November 1, 2013
Finsland was a quiet Nordic town, and its unfailingly friendly inhabitants had little experience with crime. When a dedicated and meticulous arsonist decimated 10 buildings in the late 1970s, he guaranteed that the community would have things to talk about for decades to come. Although the arsonist's identity was soon revealed, and the news of his arrest spread as quickly as the fires he had set, his motives remained maddeningly unclear. Heivoll, a Finsland native born in the midst of the arsonist's spree, grows up determined to uncover the true motives behind the arsonist's crimes. Heivoll pours his own experiences into Before I Burn, blending autobiographical details with a true story to create a thrilling and poetic novel. In this dark and powerful examination of two men's obsessions, Heivoll's introspection and attention to detail are unparalleled. Fans of In Cold Blood (1965) and The Devil in the White City (2003) will appreciate the chilling true-crime angle, while Heivoll's dazzling prose will quickly enchant those unfamiliar with this Scandinavian writer. An absorbing story of compulsion, obsession, and the power of desire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)