Readers are calling On Fire a heartbreaking and sometimes darkly humorous mother-daughter, coming-of-age tale written with gritty authenticity by author and award-winning journalist Stephanie West. In this cohesive collection of provocative stories, West details the precarious journey of raising her daughter while going through a quarter-life crisis of her own. She writes intimately about their mother-daughter relationship and how it, and Savannah’s belief in her, kept her going every day despite their brush with homelessness, an attempted sexual assault on West, and multiple career derailments including losing a job at a major sports league.
On Fire is a poignant and uplifting exploration of the mother-daughter relationship and how it’s affected by weight, gender, mental illness, and class inequities in the Midwest. West’s sharp observations of the systemic way our culture marginalizes single mothers—and contrasting intimate stories of raising her daughter within that culture—makes it a must-read for mothers and fathers of daughters, and children of single mothers.
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Stephanie A. West 