Wabanaki writer and Levant resident Morgan Talty’s literary star rose quickly in 2022 with the publication of his nationally acclaimed debut “Night of the Living Rez,” a collection of short stories set in and around the Indian Island reservation, detailing the lives of members of the Penobscot Nation.
Meeting the sky-high expectations set by critics and readers alike following a much-praised first book is a tall order. “Fire Exit,” Talty’s sophomore book and first novel, published this week by Tin House, rises to the occasion, through the sensitively written story of a man trying to reckon with his past and live his truth for the future.
Talty’s greatest strength as a writer may be the clarity with which he sculpts his characters, who feel incredibly real — almost achingly so. He clearly intimately knows these people, like the deeply wounded main character Charles, the strong but struggling matriarch Louise and lovable screw-up Bobby, Charles’ wayward Alcoholics Anonymous buddy. Even minor characters and background voices feel authentic. Talty knows this world.
Talty’s depiction of them is sensitive and empathetic, though he does not spare his characters their faults. Charles, along with most of the other people in this book, is a man living constantly with the spirits of his mistakes, his regrets and generational trauma.
The central focus of the book is what Charles is going to do about those regrets. The actions he takes to do that unfold, beautifully and often thrillingly, as he attempts to reach out to his estranged daughter, Elizabeth, and tell her the truth about who she is, and who he is, and what that all means. Talty has wrestled with the thorny issues of Indigenous identity in other stories and in essays, and it is a subject he clearly takes very personally.
Love of family, love of friends and love of community — regardless of the labels we try to put on ourselves and on each other — is the thread that binds these occasionally disparate stories, which flip back and forth between various points in Charles’ life. As with his previous book, “Fire Exit” utilizes vignettes to paint a picture of the lives of Penobscot people. Though there is a through line, “Fire Exit” does sometimes feel more akin to a series of short stories about a central theme, rather than a linear novel.
With that approach, however, the book never feels static, and Talty manages to pace each scene beautifully, as we swing between tales as different as a violent childhood encounter and an adult caring for his elderly mother with dementia. By the time we reach its emotional conclusion, we are left with a sense of a fully realized character and understand why he is the way he is. That’s what makes “Fire Exit” a rewarding and affecting read, and a worthy second effort for Talty, Maine’s most exciting new writer and a major new voice in Indigenous literature.
