Nothing Left to Burn

Nothing Left to Burn is a remarkable memoir that looks into the life of a family that has spent years harboring secrets, both dark and volatile. It eloquently tells the story of a son"s relationship with his father, the fire chief and a local hero, and his grandfather, a serial arsonist.

When Jay Varner, fresh out of college, returns home to work for the local newspaper, he knows that he will have to deal with the memories of a childhood haunted by a grandfather who was both menacing and comical and by a father who died too young and who never managed to be the father Jay so desperately needed him to be. In digging into the past, he uncovers layers of secrets, lies, and half-truths. It is only when he finally has the truth in hand that he comes to an understanding of the forces that drove his father, and of the fires that for all his efforts his father could never extinguish.

"Journalist Varner traces a scorched circle of memory in this affecting memoir. Going home after college to live with his widowed mother in their double-wide trailer in tiny McVeytown, Pa., Varner confronts a complicated past in which his father, Denton, was the heroic, beloved chief of the local volunteer fire corps, and his grandfather, a generally callous soul called Lucky, was a suspected arsonist. In this often bleak, relentless first book Varner earnestly measures his memories, resentments, and prospects against the expectations he once felt as the only son of a big man in a small community. As he describes the effort: 'everything in this book is my truth.' Varner's intense tale of fathers and sons exhausts even as it fascinates, leaving little room for humor and only an uneasy redemption. 'I am picking open a scab that will never fully heal,' Varner concludes of the contradictory emotions his story evokes. Looking to fire--as much a character as an event in these pages--to both destroy and purify the past, this story, in the end, generates more heat than light. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

His blue-collar family has a history with a fascination for fire: his father, a fire chief, his grandfather a convicted arsonist, and himself a reporter assigned to cover the local fire and accident beat. "Nothing Left to Burn" is Varner's memoir about the kinds of secrets we don't even want to tell ourselves.

Jay Varner is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he earned his MFA in creative nonfiction. He currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. This is his first book.