War without tears
Debut novel parses the absurdity of life and love during a second American civil war
Assuming that we’re basically living in a dystopia, shouldn’t we make the most of it? Christine Grillo’s effervescent debut novel, “Hestia Strikes a Match,” imagines a second American civil war that’s terrifyingly similar to our contemporary state of affairs. And yet, despite this foray into the metaverse, Grillo grapples as much with middle age, dating, and ruptured family ties as she does fascism and domestic terror. Forty-two-yearold Hestia Harris muses, “Civil war or no, you need to meet friends, and you still want the thrill of a first kiss. Pipe bombs can kill you quickly, but loneliness will kill you slowly. Life is a near-constant calculation of risks.” This pragmatic wit is the backbone of “Hestia Strikes a Match.” If you’re hesitant to read about a reality worse than the one we’re living in, don’t be. This acerbically funny and tender book about endurance is laced with tangible affection.
Faced with a trifecta of personal, professional, and political crises, Hestia is a resigned optimist with a sense of humor. Hers isn’t exactly gallows humor, but it’s close. Sharing her name with the Greek goddess of the home and hearth, Hestia Harris is a stalled out writer, grounded by circumstances. Mere months after the war began, Hestia’s husband took up with a “pro-Union, paramilitary group that wanted to take back, by any means necessary, the states that had seceded.” This was a convenient escape; their “marriage had been troubled for some time — the war gave him an out.”
Her parents are anti-woke retired academics who have moved South. Not quite confederate sympathizers, their inability to take a side — “We can make it work,” Hestia’s mother says. “The war doesn’t have to be a big deal” — reveals a tragic flaw and drastically frays their ability to connect with their sole adult daughter.
Alone, Hestia lives in Baltimore, which has become a borderland between the warring states. Without “the skills or the stomach to pivot toward war stories,” Hestia shrugged off her freelance writing career to “grow and amplify” the online presence of a retirement community near the Inner Harbor. Spearheading an oral history class (dubbed “Scribbles”), she hoped the residents would “write about their experiences with pogroms and famines, wars and revolutions. But instead of writing about crossroads in modern history, they wrote about the best friends who had betrayed them, the fathers and mothers who drank too much, the abandonments. And always, love. The love that got away. The love they didn’t get. The love that changed their lives.” The residents’ reflections serve as a Greek chorus, anchoring the novel with their seasoned perspectives. The world might feel as though it’s ending, but what endures are matters of the heart.
Some novelists might stop there and let the chorus stand on its own. “Hestia Strikes a Match” could have been a solid exploration of contemporary politics or an amusing middle-age rom-com, but Grillo’s secondary characters make this a book about repair and unexpected community. One member of the chorus steps out: Mildred. At eighty-four, she’s twice Hestia’s age, and a spitfire. Never mind that she’s staring down mortality, Mildred wants to hear all about dating during wartime. “Pics or it didn’t happen,” she frequently snaps.
Zingers aside, the novel tackles the larger interpersonal stakes of citizens living through wartime.
Caught in the crosshairs, Hestia’s sister-in-law was murdered during what was known as the Purge, a series of domestic attacks that sparked the war. She left behind Jamie, her bereft husband, and their three kids. Hestia’s husband responded with violence, picking up arms and joining combat, but Hestia stayed close to home, addressing her family’s loss with monthly family dinners. Interestingly, Mildred’s daughters (at odds with one another politically) concentrate on getting her out of the country instead of simply reconciling with each other and remaining close to home. And, man by man, chapters chronicle Hestia’s hapless dating life as analyzed by Mildred and Hestia’s Gen Z colleague Sarah, herself proud to be single. Together they lean into a necessary levity.
As time wears on, Jamie and Hestia find short-lived solace in one another’s arms. Theirs is a sincere, bruised affection, but it also demonstrates the ways that even shared grief is always unique and mutable. Healing an ongoing trauma is a constant battle.
So it’s back to the drawing board for Hestia, who admits, “Sometimes I forgot about the risks of daily life, distracted as I was by dating.” Frustratingly, even in times of war, dating apps are as critical as apps such as Safe Zones and Conflicted that monitor unrest. It becomes second nature to check the apps for alerts before making plans and then checking for exits once you arrive at a bar or restaurant. Grillo makes granular the ways in which violence is normalized. In this way, fiction teases out the psychological damage that straight nonfiction might not otherwise explore. Mildred encourages Hestia to keep the faith: “Every love affair is a shot at the Great Revision.” Grillo’s search for reunion extends in all directions in this supremely layered, emotionally and intellectually resonant novel for our time.