Danny Jacobs

In The Ignis Psalter, the eerily compelling debut novel from poet and essayist Danny Jacobs, fire and weirdness are the order of the day. This is the unnerving tale of budding arsonist Cotton Steeves of Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, and his uncle, fox farmer and pyromaniac Lester Mansard. Lester earns a living raising foxes for their pelts, but his true vocation, as he sees it, is setting fires. He has already set a few, and the village of Petitcodiac has suffered for his efforts. But show more Lester’s fascination with fire is anything but an ordinary garden-variety obsession. He has made a lifelong study of the science and the spiritual nature of fire, and even written a book he’s titled The Ignis Psalter, a small volume of homespun instruction and overwrought philosophical musings. In the novel’s opening section, set in 1913, Lester is tutoring his nephew on the art of setting things ablaze, preaching that “fire is the true Magick element” that bestows meaning to existence. But when Lester takes things too far—deliberately setting his nephew alight during an apparent initiation ritual—Cotton eventually takes his revenge, and as the section ends it appears Lester is no more. But in early 20th-century Petitcodiac, little is as it seems. And when, in the novel’s final segment, the story jumps ahead to 1993, it turns out that Lester’s influence has not been extinguished. This is because the last surviving copy of The Ignis Psalter (miraculously still in pristine condition) has fallen into the hands of 10-year-old Mort Lounsbury, a socially awkward boy whose collections run the gamut from books and hockey cards to “railroad spikes” and almost any other curious object that comes his way. Lester Mansard’s legend has survived as well, as has Cotton Steeves, who in extreme old age has become reclusive and something of a local character. Danny Jacobs’ novel, The Ignis Psalter—filled with eccentric behaviours, inexplicable phenomena, ghostly sightings—is stunningly atmospheric and induces tense forebodings in the reader as Mort and Cotton team up and the story creeps toward a seemingly unavoidable confrontation between good and evil. From the first page we fall under the spell of the haunting incantatory cadences of Jacobs’ prose, which moves at a leisurely pace as it tells a gothic-tinged tale of deranged obsession. It’s worth noting that The Ignis Psalter is not a book for the general reader. This novel is the product of a dark and surreal vision that the author pursues with singular zeal and conviction and will appeal primarily to those whose tastes lean toward the bizarre. But it is also a noteworthy achievement that places Danny Jacobs near the top of the list of writers to watch. show less