Firelight

The reviewer of this story is Tamara Tanaskovic, 17, from Valjevo, Yugoslavia

You can read this story in The Best American Short Stories 1992, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992

This is a story about a boy and his mother, who are very poor. They live in rented rooms because they don't have their own house or flat. The rooms are, in most cases, dirty, unpleasant and small. But, even though they don't have enough money to afford something better, they are looking for some other place to live in. Of course, they can't take anything. It is too expensive for them. The boy's mother usually calls that searsching for non-existent cheap and large flat "getting a feel for the market" . On Saturdays they go on sales to big supermarkets and they look at things they can't buy even in their wildest dreams: antiques, persian rugs, latest fashion clothes, etc. One day they go house hunting again. They are touring the flats in the university district.They have a look at a lot of them but either they are too expensive or awful. The last one they look at is a very decent one. It is in an old building near university. The landlord is Dr. Avery who lives there with his family. He is a professor at the university but he wants to move to another one because he thinks he is too good for that one. So, the boy and his mother come in to have a look at the flat. It is very clean, large, even nice. The boy is delighted with it but he knows they can't afford it. They sit by the fireplace in the living-room with Dr. Avery and his wife and daughter.The boy is very near it in an armchair, watching the dance of the flames. He gazes into them so deeply that he completely loses track of time. He imagines that it is his fireplace and his flat and he is a member of Dr. Avery's family, too. But the voice of his mother brings him back to cruel reality a little later. He is dissapointed and angry with his mother for tearing his dream apart. This story is mostly imagined, but it has a few autobiographical elements, as the writer says in a note about it. In my opinion it is a little unconvincing in few places, because it's not usual for people who don't have money to look at so expensive things. I mean, they have the right to look, but doesn't it hurt them more? They can look, but cannot buy.Even though this story has a few weak places I would recommend to all the readers so they can see and feel all the sadness of poor people.

Tobias Wolff's most recent book is "This Boy's Life". Winner of the 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award, he is also the author of a novel, The Barracks Thief, and two collections of short stories, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World. "Firelight" is from a collection in progress. He lives in Syracuse, New York.