Voice of the Fire

First published in 1996 as a paperback original, this extraordinary work ranges across 6,000 years of turbulent history and is set within the few square miles of rural England now known as Northampton. Its twelve largely independent narratives combine to form a cumulative portrait of the region's "secret soul," a soul that Moore illuminates with seemingly effortless mastery. The virtuoso opening section, "Hob's Hog," takes place in 4,000 BC and is related by a damaged and abandoned young man whose grasp of reality is as limited as his vocabulary. His story is one of loss, longing, and ultimate betrayal and that story, like others that will follow, finds its way into Northampton's gradually expanding pool of myth, legend, and dream. Subsequent narratives encompass a gallery of characters-saints and witches, murderers and mad men, artists and bureaucrats-whose personal histories reflect the larger history of one small corner of England.