Fireweed by Lauren Haddad follows lonely housewife Jenny, whose husband works long stints away at a farm. In Prince George, Canada, she lives alongside a widowed Indigenous mother who the neighborhood looks down upon. An educated white woman goes missing along the highway, drawing national attention, but when Jenny’s neighbor Rachelle disappears next, no one cares.
What follows is a desperate search for self-absolution as Jenny first tries to ignore the situation, then obsesses about it. Haddad’s debut novel shows off her mastery of prose and physical description, infusing each page with believable realism.
Poverty, misogyny, and racism take a front seat. Fireweed captures elements of Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land and Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, reflecting similar themes of self-discovery and disenfranchisement through a fictional medium.
A power imbalance between spouses reoccurs throughout Jenny’s closest relationships, her mother and friends demonstrating that the most desirable facet of womanhood is complacency. “Women were always responsible,” Haddad writes. “For what we did, what other women did. What men did — to us, because of us.” A feeling of powerlessness invades the book, overwhelming and inescapable. It shows just how lonely prejudice can make a community.
Jenny equates motherhood with womanhood, struggling to understand her role without children despite the interpersonal dangers reflected in her relationship with her parents. Still, she maintains a sweet disposition toward nurturing children of her own, unwilling to give up her need to take care of someone else.
