Photo © Beowulf Sheehan

Kathleen Donohoe’s debut novel, Ashes of Fiery Weather (LJ 6/1/16), offers a bold look at six generations of captivating women in an Irish American family of firefighters living in Brooklyn. Here, Donohoe answers questions on everything from her favorite characters to the facts behind her ­fiction. What inspired you to write a story from the perspectives of the wives of New York City firefighters? KD: After 9/11, the firefighters’ stories were told from the beginning—first in the news, and then later in many nonfiction books and memoirs. As compelling as they were, I didn’t want to tell a fictionalized version of those stories. Coverage of the funerals was a constant in the months after [the attack], and there would be a shot of the widow and her children coming out of the service behind the coffin (when there was one). The novel developed from that image. At the outset, that was the story I wanted to tell—not only what happens after the funeral, but also life before the loss.

I hope that firefighters’ wives, not just in New York, but everywhere, will come away with the sense that the book captures something of what it means to have a spouse with a dangerous job, and how ordinary life is juxtaposed on that reality.

Of the many multifaceted women in your novel, which character do you relate to the most? One of the most fascinating aspects of writing this book was moving in and out of the characters’ lives—essentially meeting them and then rejoining them years, or even decades later. When I was writing one chapter, I was immersed completely and never felt out of step with any of them, so it would be difficult to pick.

Maggie O’Reilly is my contemporary, so she and I would have a lot in common. I think the one who I would most like to sit down and talk with is Maggie’s great-great-grandmother, Bridie. She came to America from Ireland at the time of the Great Hunger alone as a child. She doesn’t have her own chapter, so I would like to hear her story, in her voice.

The convent you depict is such an important part of the setting because paranormal and religious beliefs run as undercurrents in many of the story lines. How did you research this nunnery and the ghost stories? Are there similar real-life firehouse tales? I spent a lot of time reading through the online archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for information about the [Sister Adorers of the Precious Blood] and looking over the convent’s website, which tells a lot about its past. But it wasn’t my goal to replicate the actual place, and the details about the nunnery are invented.

The idea of a firehouse being haunted came from the book The Last Alarm: The History and Tradition of Supreme Sacrifice in the Fire Departments of New York City by Michael L. Boucher et al., which is a record of every line-of-duty death, from colonial times onward. I found out that 18 men had died in accidents involving fire poles. That those deaths could have been prevented and that they happened in the firehouses gave rise to the novel’s ghost story.

You manage to work a lot of issuesinto the plot: 9/11, immigration, women’s rights, the Vietnam War and PTSD, adoption, LGBTQ relationships, etc. How were you able to cover so many different topics? I think the way [the novel] is structured allows for each issue to be distinct; every chapter is its own universe but also intricately connects to the whole. As I was writing the first draft, I kept telling myself not to worry about how expansive it was. The decision to just let the novel unfold in the early drafts without trying to cut it back or tighten it probably allowed the narrative to feel complete. What do you hope readers will take away from Ashes of Fiery Weather? When I finish reading a story that resonates with me, I think about the characters long after. I hope readers do that with this, and that they come away with the sense that they know and understand these women and why they made the choices they did. As for a message, I suppose it’s that women have fully realized, very complex inner lives that are quite separate from their roles as wives and mothers and whatever their professional identity may be.

I’d also like [readers] to understand, with regard to fire department families, that loss doesn’t hurt less. After 9/11, the media spoke a lot about the courage of FDNY families, and rightfully so. But I think sometimes stoicism was taken for resignation, meaning we always knew this could happen someday. Even when you know your loved one has a risky job, you’re not ready for the worst. There is no [being] ready. This is true not only of 9/11 but [in life] always. That is what I hope comes through in the book.—­Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD