''Music for Torching'' is a 1999 novel by American writer A. M. Homes. It is about a dysfunctional suburban family in the contemporary United States. The book deals with issues including

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...

infidelity Infidelity (synonyms include cheating, straying, adultery, being unfaithful, two-timing, or having an affair) is a violation of a couple's emotional and/or sexual exclusivity that commonly results in feelings of anger, sexual jealousy, and ri ...

social consciousness Social consciousness or social awareness, is collective consciousness shared by individuals within a society.school violence School violence includes violence between school students as well as attacks by students on school staff. It encompasses physical violence, including Fistfighting, student-on-student fighting, corporal punishment; Psychological abuse, psychologica ...

. It is one of Homes' most critically acclaimed books.

Background

Homes published the first chapter of her 1999 novel ''Music for Torching'' as a short story in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

.'' The title comes from a 1955 jazz album of the same name, recorded by singer

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...

. It features some characters who appeared in short stories of her first collection, ''

The Safety of Objects ''The Safety of Objects'' is a 2001 American drama film based upon a collection of short stories of the same name written by A. M. Homes and published in 1990. It features four suburban families who find that their lives become intertwined. The f ...

'' (1990).

Plot summary

Characters include Elaine and Paul, a married middle-class couple, and their two male children. Paul works in New York City, and Elaine is "staying at home" to rear the children. The couple alternate between proclaiming their happiness and boredom. By the end of the first chapter, they have set fire to their house.

Reception

Gary Krist of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote that this novel by Homes was "far more effectively unsettling han her previous ''The End of Alice'' mainly because she serves up her feast of deviance in a narrative that is much more difficult to dismiss." He described this novel as "nasty and willfully grotesque." He wrote further:

"The fact is, I was at times appalled by the book, annoyed by it, angered by it. Its ending struck me as cynical and manipulative. But even so, I found myself rapt from beginning to end, fascinated by Homes's single-minded talent for provocation."Krist, Gary, "Burning Down The House"
''The New York Times'', May 30, 1999.

He says of the last chapter:

"But here, again, Homes proves herself such a virtuoso portraitist of modern depravity that any sense of violation is complicated by an overwhelming exhilaration. The scene is so electrifying, in other words, that you can almost forgive Homes the blatantly aggressive impulse behind it."

He concluded with a caveat: "In her last two novels, the desire to outrage is so conspicuous that it risks obscuring her powerful gifts as a novelist." Jill Adams in ''The Barcelona Review'' described this novel as having Homes' "trademark style of wry humor applied to the uncanny dissection of suburbia’s facade."
''The Barcelona Review'', Jun/July 2007, #58/59, accessed 31 May 2014 Britain's ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' found it "immensely disturbing". ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'' magazine called the novel "haunting.",Hubbard, Kim, People, "Music For Torching", June 28, 1999.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Music For Torching 1999 American novels Novels about dysfunctional families