Signal Fires, American author Dani Shapiro’s novel about one fateful night in 1985, was first published in October 2022. On that aforementioned fateful night, three teenagers begin to drink heavily. After they are finished drinking, one of the teenagers gets behind the wheel of a car and crashes, destroying the lives of each teenager and people in their community, including Dr. Wilf. Signal Fires explores the fallout of the tragic accident and how it impacted each family throughout time. Signal Fires is an emotional and thematically complex novel about the ties that bind a family together.
For Shapiro, Signal Fires was a return to a form at which she excelled. She hadn't written a novel for fifteen years before writing Signal Fires. But that time away didn't impact the reviews that her 2022 novel received. Signal Fires was an overnight bestseller. The Washington Post, which loved the novel, wrote that Signal Fires "is a powerful work that delves into the consequences of a long-hidden lie." Kirkus Reviews thought similarly, noting that the story was wonderfully written and emotional and its character "well-developed."
