The Evolution of Fire: Essays on Crisis and Becoming is the latest work from writer Angela Pelster. "Everything from our very bodies to our country to the cities we live in, everything around us has been shaped by crisis at some point," says the author. "What does it mean that we're surrounded by a reality that is shaped by crisis?"
Pelster's work focuses on her own life and events and relationships from her past. "In the book, I talk about addiction that both my father and my ex-husband struggled with and the way that it was harming me and the people I love," says Pelster. "It was a time of incredible lack of control." Through the essays, Pelster recalls various formative stories from childhood as well as her time spent as a single mother and the choices that led to success.
Through the narrative, fire is frequently presented in a figurative sense and in a very literal one, and also as something that burns and something that protects. "I really became interested in the way anthropologists think that fire played such a role in human development," says Pelster. "In many ways it is the way we are what we are today."
The new collection of essays is available in various bookstores as well as through Milkweed Editions.
Minnesota Reads is produced at The North 103.3 with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
