"The Arson People burns bright and hot through the geography of a young mind-all of the cruelty and disaffection of small town youth is set aflame, and like a fire, has no center. Address to address, we map the progression forward and the story backward, but fire to fire, we trace, along with the arsonist, the problem back to her. This is the devastation of The Arson People-that we are both hero and villain, that we are complicit in others' pain even as we try to right it. Katie Jean Shinkle is a force of a storyteller, as dangerous as she is poetic, and her book is a blaze." -Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star.