For May we’re excited to be reading City in Flames by Tomas Hachard. A love story about two isolated people with a deep yet fragile bond trying to find their way to each other while political disorder engulfs the world around them.
Sara is a graduate student living away from home and struggling to finish her degree. When she kindles a long-distance relationship with Kevin, a disillusioned and apathetic IT worker, the two watch as the city that Kevin lives in, and Sara grew up in, slowly rises up against P., a recently elected populist leader. As protests escalate to a night of devastating fires, the impending political breakdown pushes Sara and Kevin’s relationship to the brink and leaves them torn between the turmoil of the present and a hope for the future, between their longing for connection and their terror of commitment.
Tomas Hachard’s work has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Slate, Guernica Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada, and Hazlitt, among many others, and is a former book and film critic for NPR. He was born in Argentina and raised in Toronto, where he currently lives with his partner and son.
Website https://www.tomashachard.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/thachard