Julien Appignani

First Assignment: Story Statement

 

Michael must become his grandfather’s son.  After his salt-of-the-earth, Italian-immigrant grandparents’ death, he rejoins a driven, ambitious immediate family whose life has largely moved on without him.  His mother feels guilty for having left him so much in his grandparents’ care as a child; his father, though a good man, has no way to approach the complex family problem in front of him.  Michael’s oldest brother, heroic in the grandfather’s mold, aggressively claims the patriarch’s legacy for himself; while he welcomes Michael at first, he grows cold toward him quickly, recognizing the problems he brings in his train.  Michael’s twin sister, a strong-willed, gorgeous, talented young woman, tries to be kind to him but is justly suspicious.  And the youngest brother, a true musical prodigy, with all the arrogance and fanfare that may entail, constantly, pridefully, involuntarily goads and irritates him.  These are the external forces ranged against Michael in his attempt to become his grandfather’s son – guilt; uncomprehending goodwill; downright aggression; apprehensiveness; arrogance.  But the internal forces are much more pernicious.  The shame, humiliation, envy and resentment he comes to feel when thrust by his grandparents’ death into a family constellation that damns his heart’s desire to failure drive him to set the house on fire.     

 

Second Assignment: Antagonist

 

I admit a potential weak point in that there is no real, physical antagonist in this story.  The young man is divided against himself.  That being said, I believe the story does not lack for drama, internal and external (i.e., interpersonal), though the purely internal may be hard to communicate – particularly in a character so persistently silent.  He is trying to show himself that he can in some sense be, or resuscitate, or redeem what was formerly the most valuable thing in his world – his grandfather.  The problem is not simply that he can’t, but that his siblings, specifically his older and younger brothers, so conspicuously, and vividly, and literally, can.  Nothing on earth will stop the former from becoming some variation of the Marine, builder and New York City firefighter that his grandfather was; and nothing on earth will stop the latter from becoming some variation of the gifted, feted musician that his grandfather might have been.  The pride of these two brothers (in themselves, through their grandfather) does, then, in a sense, collide with the desire of the protagonist to somehow get that pride or status, to somehow learn it or earn it, to be worthy.

 

Third Assignment: Title

 

Fire in the House

 

Fourth Assignment: Comparables

 

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel; Duong Thu Huong, Paradise of the Blind

 

Fifth Assignment: Hook Line

 

A young man orphaned by his heroic, Old-World grandfather tries and fails to fit back into his ambitious, twenty-first-century immediate family, all of whom claim the lost patriarch for their own.

 

Sixth Assignment: Conflict

 

The conflict is between a not yet fully formed young man cast adrift by the death of his grandfather and a family (his family) that is driven, and ambitious, and rip-roaring along – and yet is still totally loyal, on its own terms, to the memory of the dead patriarch.  The problem is that his grandfather is all the young man has, and now that his grandfather is gone, he can find no trace of the man in himself.  He cannot believe in the man in himself.  And so he sets out, disastrously, to try to prove it.  Meanwhile, his brothers, especially, show the most conspicuous signs of their heritage – physical gifts, musical gifts, courage, grit.  The conflict involves not just the brothers, however, but also the parents and the sister - the whole family.  The father tries to help but is stymied.  The mother is overwhelmed with guilt; her hands are tied.  The sister, after a while, is creeped out by the young man’s strange behavior.  The point is that the family is convulsed by this event, by the return or re-emergence of the long-lost son and the unhappiness he has carried with him.  The solution of that misery lies in himself; in the realization that the visible signs of his grandfather that he sees in his brothers, for instance, are nothing more than signs.  The tragedy of the story is that, because of the extremities of emotion to which this situation gives rise, neither he nor anyone else lives to see this realization happen.

 

Seventh Assignment: Setting

 

The house on the beach on the island.  Where nearly all the action takes place.  A beautiful, old, handsome beach cottage – like Chief Brody’s house in Jaws.

 

Scene opens on the beach back of the house.  The beach is a constant part of the story – with the oldest brother, doing his intense training swims; with the weather, whose moods may reflect or reinforce the action; with the sister and a beau, on an ill-fated summer day; with the boat, lying in wait at the dock.

 

So.  The house – the kitchen, where most action inside the house takes place.  But also, the living room – where the piano is, and where the piano man (the youngest brother), for hour after unremitting hour, plays.

 

The protagonist goes on walks – out from the house.  Along the coast road.  The bushes, and flowers, and trees, etc., i.e. the natural world, again, may reflect the mood.

 

His circuit takes him past a firehouse, which is also important.  The inside appears, later.  As well as a house that the father and the oldest brother are working on, on another part of the island; as well as a neighbor’s house, the former Fire Chief’s, which goes up ominously in flames (again, later).

 

Back to the circuit.  It takes the young man through the town – again, something like the quaint, old, island-style town center depicted in Jaws.

 

And then over the bluffs, with their precipitous drops, and the churning surf at their base. (Bad news.)

 

But most of the action just takes place at the house.  I found it to be more than enough.  If there is something claustrophobic, and stifling, and suffocating, at times, in that kitchen, there should be.