46 pages 1 hour read

Charles M. Blow

Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2014

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Prologue-Chapter 2

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue Summary

Blow, then a 20-year-old college student, receives a phone call from his cousin Chester who sexually abused him as a boy. He hasn’t heard from Chester in a very long time, but his voice triggers years of suppressed guilt and rage. Grabbing a .22 caliber pistol, Blow jumps in his car and heads for his mother’s house, intent on killing his abuser: “I was convinced that if I removed him from the world, the part of me that I despised would go with him” (3).

Chapter 1 Summary: “The House with No Steps”

Blow’s first memory is the death of his great-grandmother—although, as a boy, he imagines the gathering is for a birthday celebration. When she passes away surrounded by her family, Blow is confused, thinking she’s searching for a gift that’s not there.

Growing up, Blow is relatively accustomed to death, attending more funerals than birthday parties. He is the youngest of five boys, and by the time he is born, his mother Billie is “dead-ass tired of working on a dead-end marriage and a dead-end job” (7). His father Spinner is a construction worker but also a pool hustler and a philanderer.

Blow grows up in Gibsland, Louisiana, “right in the middle of nowhere” (7).

Related Titles

By Charles M. Blow

Study Guide

logo

The Devil You Know

Charles M. Blow

The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto

Charles M. Blow