Charles Martin's beautifully written novel Chasing Fireflies is predictable but enjoyable.
A Predictable Plot
The opening on the back cover of Charles Martin’s fifth novel reads, “‘Never Settle for less than the truth,’ she told him. But when you don’t even know your real name, the truth gets a little complicated.” It would be unwise to read the rest of the back cover because reading it will pretty much give the plot away. However, this blurb does give context to the fixations at the beginning of the novel.
Multiple Plots and Tangents
Chasing Fireflies by Charles Martin opens with a rather detailed dissertation on trains, specifically the Silver Meteor. While it seems unrelated, the dissertation does fit into the larger context of the novel. It not only sets up the story of the child who is abandoned by a suicidal woman but it sets up the story at large. However, the relation of the train to the story at large is unclear to the reader and remains so until the end of the story and even when the novel resolves, it doesn’t necessarily become immediately clear. The relationship is one that becomes clear later when one (if one is prone to contemplation) sits back and contemplates the story.
Unlike the tight focus of Martin’s previous novel with insects in the title (When Crickets Cry), Chasing Fireflies tends to sprawl. Like When Crickets Cry, this novel follows multiple story lines using an alternating chapters format. However, rather than drawing together two very tightly related stories one from the past and one from the present. Chasing Fireflies draws together two similar stories that of the boy abandoned at the beginning of the book and that of a journalist named Chase Walker, another foster child who as an adult still seeks for answers about his mysterious childhood. In addition, there is the mysterious history of Chase’s foster father, Willee, and the story of his cousin Tommye. If those weren’t enough threads to pull together, there are also the questions about the mysterious foundling and the budding relationship between Chase and the attorney who helps him untangle the history of the abandoned child.
The Strengths of the Novel
If these threads leave your head spinning, Martin’s tendency to give you tangential information might thoroughly overwhelm you.
BUT...if you like sprawling novels with plenty of tangents and a few loose ends, the 340 pages of Martin’s latest novel will fly by much like the Silver Meteor.
Martin’s prose is delicious. Even if one finds his plots predictable his characters and prose make his stories worthwhile.
Martin, Charles. Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery. Thomas Nelson. 2007. ISBN 978-1-59554-056-0
Read a review of Martin's novel When Crickets Cry
