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A house possessed by a mysterious suffering.
A house where a father dies, whose actions fed the madness and death of wife and sons.
A house a family walks into, to be caught in this web of inheritance.
I wrote The House That Fire Built to understand what happened when a fire destroyed our house. What I learned was how trauma and loss can lead to healing and insight.
In lyric and narrative poems, this book tells the story of inheriting a house from my wife's father in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Act 1 opens in the middle, between death and fire, among supernatural events when moving into the house. Act 2 tells of the father's death and difficult family legacy. Acts 3 and 4 reveal the fire and its aftermath—shock and confusion, demons both internal and external— as we try to protect ourselves from an arsonist no authorities will stop. In grappling with the why, we circle karmic forces and hungry ghosts fueling his acts that saved us from a worse fate. Act V embraces solace and awareness through our love, the Dharma, and the natural world.
Kirk Glaser is a poet and prose writer whose work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and appeared in publications including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Threepenny Review, and Nimrod. Awards for his work include a New Millennium Writings Contest Finalist, University of California Poet Laureate Award, and Richard Eberhart Poetry Award. He is an emeritus professor of English at Santa Clara University.
Reviewed by Doreen Chombu for Readers' Favorite
The House That Fire Built by Kirk Glaser is a collection of narrative poems that tells a story about family trauma. It follows a man who inherits his father-in-law’s house and moves in with his wife and daughter. His father died of cancer and left a home full of unsettling memories. He reflects on secret family relationships, his broken mother, and the fractured mental health of the children. The abuse followed each one of them, but their father, who caused all the pain and trauma, did not seem to care. After the family moves in, the house and everything in it burn to ashes in a mysterious fire suspected to have been started by Gabe, a troubled man connected to the family through tragic circumstances. The fire and insurance investigation open more wounds and suspicions, but also hope for new growth.
The House That Fire Built is packed with raw, emotional poems that dive deep into how family trauma leaves its mark on both people and their communities. Kirk Glaser doesn’t shy away from dark topics—there’s abuse, grief, mental illness, infidelity, and addiction. He uses the image of fire to symbolize different things. Sure, fire destroys, but in these poems, it also becomes a force for cleansing, a way to burn away pain and make room for something new. Glaser spends a lot of time exploring what it means to look for meaning when life feels out of control. There’s a constant pull between chaos and finding your footing again. Going back to the past, sifting through old memories, he shows how that process can hurt but also help you heal. I couldn’t put the book down. There’s a tension, almost suspense, that’s always humming underneath the surface, and it kept me reading. He mixes in angels, debates about karma, and elemental forces, creating a mythic, spiritual layer that gives the poems even more weight. At its core, the collection is about how inherited trauma can take over your life, but Glaser leaves you with some hope, too. The fire doesn’t just destroy; it can clear the way for brighter days ahead.
