"American Fire"

Andrew Erkkila is a former Gila Hotshot with four seasons of fire experience. He has fought fire in most of the western U.S. In 2011, he was honored with the S.W.E.A.T. Award (Superior Work Ethic and Teamwork).

He graduated from the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark. His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, The Master's Review, the New Orleans Review and was listed as a finalist in the 2019 Zoetrope All-Story Screenplay Contest judged by Francis Ford Coppola and as a finalist in the Missouri Review’s 2019 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. His work has also been featured on the Great New American Essays podcast and optioned for television.

Erkkila is adjunct faculty at the The College of New Jersey and Rutgers-Newark Writing Program.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, American Fire, and reported the following:

From page 69:

When I ran away at seventeen, I knew one thing—the only real death is avoiding life. So I did what everyone that age does. I went to New York to be an artist, but mostly I did regrettable things, and went broke.

I’m fine now. But I also know crazy never leaves. It lives inside. My New York uncle is proof. He took me in when I moved there. He taught me carpentry. And discipline. He could fix anything. Except his own mind. He started hearing voices until he no longer knew what was real. My brother was no different. Sometimes I worry I’m like that too.

I walk out onto my porch with a bottle of whiskey. Sparrows dart from twig to twig.

My mother says the same things. Life is with people, and if I live nowhere, I don’t exist. She begs me to think of one good memory from childhood. One family dinner? I can. But it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to live without family. But it’s even harder to tell my mother she’s brainwashed. Because that’s the thing about brainwashed people. They don’t know.

The night spins on briskly. Drunk as this, it’s like I’m submerged. I only hear noises. Distortion. Maybe it’s my unspeakably high tolerance for pain. I used to love this job. But now every day I ask myself what the hell I’m doing, taking shit from twenty-year-olds. I’m an underpaid babysitter. Death, old age, going nuts, blind, ending up alone, I can’t keep track of the daily list of fears. Now I have Bronson’s cloudy lungs to worry about. I might as well quit. Or get fired.

I empty the bottle. I shout to the trees, the wind, the valley. I cry. My voice is the only voice in the night.

I trudge back to bed, but don’t sleep. I fall through the dreamless hole that every drunk knows, and cross to the other side.

The Page 69 Test works remarkably well in capturing the emotional core of American Fire. The book can be categorized as an adventure story—a genre that privileges action over interiority. In this passage, however, Tanya, the main character, who is also an alcoholic, exists in her drunkest and most vulnerable moment. In the safe space of her off-the-grid cabin, she comes to grips with some troubling behavioral patterns that stem from her upbringing in an extremely religious household. Tanya is defined by her freedom, but longs for friendship—two concepts often at odds. True friendship requires sacrifice and selflessness; freedom, a bit more nebulous, can be defined as the unhindered ability to unapologetically be.

Much of the book is about fighting fire, working on an elite team in New Mexico. But what drives a person towards a career in fire? In this section, we clearly see what keeps her up at night. Who she wants to be. Even now, she still believes she can only define herself in opposition to her parents. This is an important stage for anyone, when someone reaches a turning point. She sees the pathway to becoming the person she wants to be, but will she take it? Will she discover that by doing so she will find the freedom that comes with it?

Visit Andrew Erkkila's website.

--Marshal Zeringue