Ashes of Fiery Weather

This breathtaking first novel spans several generations of Irish-American women whose lives revolve around the Glory Devlins, the Brooklyn fire company of which their loved ones are members. In 1983, we meet Norah O’Reilly, whose firefighter husband, Sean, has just died in a fire, leaving her to raise four children on her own. The story then travels back and forth in time, introducing Sean’s mother, Delia Keegan O’Reilly, a closeted lesbian; Annie-Rose Devlin Keegan, Delia’s mother, who loses two young sons to the influenza pandemic of 1918; and Sean’s adopted sister, Eileen O’Reilly Maddox, one of the FDNY’s first female firefighters. The story builds up to Sept. 11, 2001, as Sean’s daughter, Maggie, a graduate student in Irish literature studying in Ireland, tries desperately to learn news of her family. It all ends with Katie McKenna, the 20-year-old daughter Maggie gave up for adoption at birth, trying to find her biological roots 11 years after her adoptive mother died in the South Tower. The child of a family of Irish-American firefighters, the author shows how tradition, sorrow, and love of the old country bind these lives together. Her depiction of 9/11 is by far one of the best fictional accounts by that terrible day in which 343 members of the FDNY perished. In the end, her novel is a moving testament to the men and women who risk their lives every day. (Aug.)