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THE FIREBUG OF BALROG COUNTY

David Oppegaard

2016 Minnesota Book Award Finalist

Dark times have fallen on remote Balrog County and Mack Druneswald, a high school senior with a love of clandestine arson, is doing his best to deal. While his family is haunted by his mother's recent death, Mack spends his nights roaming the Minnesota countryside, looking for something new to burn. When he encounters Katrina, a college Goth girl with her own baggage, Mack sets out on a path of dissipation and pyromania the likes of which sleepy Balrog County has never seen before. A darkly comic tour-de-force, The Firebug of Balrog County is about legend, small towns, and the fire that binds.

David Oppegaard's first two books, The Suicide Collectors (2008) and Wormwood, Nevada (2009), were published by St. Martin's Press. The Suicide Collectors was an Indie Next Notable Title and a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. It received a starred Publishers Weekly review and Stan Lee called it a "doozy . . . with every page a thrilling new surprise" His most recent title, And the Hills Opened Up, has also received the PW star and was a Missoulian top fiction pick for August 2014.
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Published by Flux

Comments

... A well-realized setting and Oppegaard's resistance to tidily resolving the story's conflicts both contribute to the novel's solid sense of realism. - The New Publishers Weekly Review Read more...

...An unusual coming of age, sparking a hot if not quite perfect conflagration. -- Kirkus Reviews Read more...