Joe Hillis the author of several short story collections, the Locke & Key comic book series, and best-selling novels The Heart-Shaped Box, NOS4A2, and Horns. He joined Virginia Prescott for a conversation for Writers on a New England Stage in Portsmouth on May 16, 2016.
His new book,The Fireman is about a pandemic that causes the affected to burst into flames and it's spreading like - you guessed it - wildfire across the planet. Cities are smoldering, corpses litter the streets, the sky choked with smoke...even online, a Google search turns up a digital image of a smoking pile of ash.
The novel is set in New Hampshire, though, with plenty of local landmarks to ground us. It is a harrowing look at what happens when fear takes over - turning neighbors and even couples into the "us"s and the "them"s.
