Manjula Martin's powerful debut memoir, The Last Fire Season, combines an eyewitness account of pandemic-era wildfires in California with reflections on living with chronic pain. In thoughtful, sharply observed chapters, Martin draws a layered portrait of her beloved northern California landscapes. She investigates the extractive, damaging practices that have left the land more vulnerable to drought, wildfires, and other natural disasters. Driven to learn more, and to find a sustainable way forward, Martin interviews park rangers, naturalists, community workers, and experts (many of whom are Indigenous) on "good fire" to understand how humans can better live in healthy relationship to the land.
Alongside Martin's narrative of fire-prone landscapes, she unfurls the story of her own injury (due to a faulty IUD), and her frustrating experiences with the healthcare system. By the time the wildfires come to dominate her life, Martin's body is in chronic pain (of varying intensities). She considers what it means to live in a vulnerable body on a vulnerable planet, where tools exist to mitigate both sets of challenges, but simple solutions are out of reach. She asks thoughtful questions about where to go from here: local and state governments, conservation groups, Indigenous organizations, and ordinary citizens all must play a part. Martin also pays tribute to the mesmerizing, sometimes cleansing, undeniably powerful nature of fire itself: it may be complicated and sometimes dangerous, but it is worthy of respect and care--like the land and the creatures it affects. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams