American fire

Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land

255 pages

English language

Published Feb. 16, 2017

ISBN:
978-1-63149-051-4
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OCLC Number:
959880174

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The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn’t stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate―there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning.

The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie’s confession unspooled, it …

3 editions

Subjects

  • Social conditions
  • Economic conditions
  • Arson

Places

  • Accomack County
  • Virginia
  • Accomack County (Va.)

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