Quick take
In this luminous and poignant novel, the many unexpected forces that define and shape families are deftly explored.
Good to know
Multiple viewpoints
Slow build
Nonlinear timeline
Sad
Synopsis
One Night. One Fateful Choice. A Constellation of Lives Changed Forever.
Signal Fires opens on a summer night in 1985. Three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car, and, in an instant, everything on Division Street changes. Each of their lives, and that of Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives on the scene, is shattered. For the Wilf family, the circumstances of that fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken.
On Division Street, time has moved on. When the Shenkmans arrive—a young couple expecting a baby boy—it is as if the accident never happened. But when Waldo, the Shenkmans’ brilliant, lonely son who marvels at the beauty of the world and has a native ability to find connections in everything, befriends Dr. Wilf, now retired and struggling with his wife’s decline, past events come hurtling back in ways no one could ever have foreseen.
Free sample
Why I love it
Mary Laura Philpott
Author, Bomb Shelter
Signal Fires is a crowd-pleaser, by which I mean there are so many ways for every manner of reader to enjoy this novel. There’s the unforgettable story of the Wilf and Shenkman families, which grabs your heart from the first page and never lets go. There are the sentences, which spin ordinary words into golden threads of gorgeous imagery. And there are the profoundly moving observations about how certain before-and-after moments echo throughout our lifetimes and beyond.
This book enchanted me. Something undeniably mystical seems to be at work in the way the characters connect with one another. Time and again, split-second decisions cause rippling effects across the lives of family, friends, and neighbors for years to come. It will make you look at your own life and think about how the past is never really past, and how maybe there’s no such thing as a total stranger.
For longtime fans of Dani Shapiro’s writing, her return to fiction will feel like a culmination of so many fertile themes she has explored in her memoirs: family, faith, fate, choice, and consequence. It’s fun to see what happens when she pours all that thinking into a novel-shaped container. If Signal Fires is your first exposure to Shapiro’s storytelling, well, lucky you! This is a lovely place to start.
Member ratings (2,153)
Mara B.
Grove City, OH
Non linear stories can be hard to follow but Shapiro did it perfectly. A beautifully written story about the intertwined lives of 2 families living in Division Street. Short but poignant. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Elizabeth B.
Lexington, KY
I’m gonna actually upgrade from my original feeling b/c I loved the intertwining of characters. But there was a sex scene that was more graphic than I was comfortable with. The characters stay with u!
Meghan K.
Studio City, CA
Incredible story exploring the connective tissue between human beings, in life + death. It’s comforting while also breaking your heart. Felt authentic to decisions we make that can change everything.
Lynette A.
Longmont, CO
I loved the oak tree, the night sky, Waldo and Ben’s sweet connection, but in some respects the writing was tedious. As a therapist, I appreciated the signs of trauma, will read again at some point!
Marie E.
Bean Station, TN
There was so much about this book that I loved. The life-long connections made by a neighboring Doctor and the child he helped enter the world under difficult circumstances, and their family's lives.