The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Thomas Mullen

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Название The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers
Автор произведения Thomas Mullen
Жанр Историческая литература
Серия
Издательство Историческая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007368365



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       The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers

      Thomas Mullen

      

      FOURTH ESTATE • London

       For my parents, brothers, and sister

      Men’s memories are uncertain, and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.

      

      —CORMAC McCARTHY, BLOOD MERIDIAN

      It seemed a little too pat. It had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact.

      

      —RAYMOND CHANDLER, THE BIG SLEEP

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       VIII.

       IX.

       X.

       XI.

       THE SECOND DEATH OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS

       Already the stories were coming to life

       XII.

       XIII.

       XIV.

       XV.

       XVI.

       XVII.

       XVIII.

       XIX.

       XX.

       THE THIRD DEATH OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS

       As more time passed

       XXI.

       XXII.

       XXIII.

       XXIV.

       XXV.

       XXVI.

       XXVII.

       XXVIII.

       XXIX.

       XXX.

       XXXI.

       XXXII.

       XXXIII.

       XXXIV.

       XXXV.

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

       Also by Thomas Mullen

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

THE FIRST DEATH OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS

       It all began when they died.

       No one I spoke to was entirely sure when they were first called “the Firefly Brothers,” or why the phrase stuck. A play on the Firesons’ name, or an initial mispronunciation embossed into permanence by the papers? Or perhaps a reference to how the brothers always seemed to vanish from the authorities’ gaze, only to reappear so very far from their pursuers. As if they were a tiny piece of magic, an otherworldly glow, misplaced in our dark and mundane world.

       But what was magic, and what mundane, in those insane times? Jobs you’d worked for two decades vanished. Factories that had stood tall for lifetimes went vacant, were scavenged for scrap, and collapsed. Life savings evaporated, sometimes in a single day. In our once fertile heartland, dry winds blew with the power and rage of untold stories accidentally left out of ancient texts, returning with a vengeance, demanding to be heard. Men disappeared, some scribbling sad notes for their wives, others leaving