Who by Fire is a powerful, passionate novel about the march of "progress" and the environments, families, and ways of life destroyed in its wake.
The heart of this moving story belongs to Tom Ryder--a man whose expectations for the future and assumptions about his own strength and power are persistently and devastatingly undermined by the arrival of a sour gas plant on the border of his southern Alberta farm in the early 1960s. The emissions from the plant poison not only his livestock but the relationships he has with his family, most especially with his wife, Ella. The family is left without viable legal recource against the plant, and Tom must watch his farm dwindle away, his sense of himself dwindling away with it.
The novel moves into the present with the story of Tom's son, Bill, who reacts to his father's disappointments by rising through the managerial ranks of an oil company in Fort McMurray, hiding from his guilt in the local casino. Bill pushes himself towards a crisis in conscience through a relationship he has with a Native woman whose community is threatened by the actions of his company. ( )

I received a free copy of Who by Fire from Netgalley. This book very much grew on me. Stenson tells the story of a farm family in Alberta starting from the 1960's, and the effects that a newly built gas plant next to the farm has on them. The story takes place in two time periods -- from the parents' point of view starting in the 1960s, and today from the point of their son Bill. It's not a particularly complex story, but the characters feel very human and the writing is nicely straightforward. I found the parents' story particularly compelling and it rang emotionally true -- so much so that I found myself getting teary a couple of times. The son's contemporary story didn't work quite as well for me. His anger and recklessness feel exaggerated, and not really tied to his childhood as the book tries to suggest. But this is a minor flaw. It's tricky to write environmental fiction without being preachy and portraying characters as unidimensional. Stenson pulls it off nicely. ( )