Hestia Strikes a Match
2023 - Farrar Straus and Giroux
The year is 2023, and things are bad―bad, but still not as bad as they could be. Hestia Harris is forty-two, abandoned by her husband (he left to fight for the Union cause), and estranged from her parents (they’re leaving for the Confederacy). Yes, the United States has collapsed into a second civil war and again it’s Unionists against Confederates, children against parents, friends against friends.
Christine Grillo’s Hestia Strikes a Match is an irreverent, incisive, laugh-out-loud interrogation of modern love of all kinds, in all its messy beauty. Equal parts wise and hilarious, it fills the heart, fortifies the spirit, and will surely help to fend off despair. In the face of the everyday wildness of our times, it asks and answers that newly constant question: How do we make a full, wonderfully ordinary life when the whole mad world is clattering down around us?
“Steamy, smart, and hilarious.” —Oprah Daily
“Grillo pulls off a clever satire of life in a divided country … Bridget Jones’s Diary for the post-MAGA era.” —Publishers Weekly
“This sharp, sparkling debut is a timely reminder of what connects people even in a country tearing itself apart: the desire to love.” —Allison Cho, Booklist
“A sharply observed and written tale.” —Kirkus
“Christine Grillo's debut novel, Hestia Strikes a Match, is sure to strike a chord with its pinpoint take on political polarization, modern love and generational divides, all delivered in a quick-witted and big-hearted narrative that will captivate readers with its wry vulnerability.” —Jaclyn Fulwood, Shelf Awareness
“Grillo’s witty debut novel answers an unusual question: How does one survive a midlife crisis during a civil war?” —Becky Meloan, The Washington Post
“‘Hestia Strikes a Match’ could have been a solid exploration of contemporary politics or an amusing middle-age rom-com, but Grillo’s secondary characters make this a book about repair and unexpected community. … Grillo’s search for reunion extends in all directions in this supremely layered, emotionally and intellectually resonant novel for our time.” —Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston Globe
“For fans of Maria Semple’s Bernadette, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant, and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones, Hestia is just as unique, at once brutally honest, self-deprecating, and committed to forging her own path. But where Hestia Strikes a Match delivers most effectively is in its plainspoken commentary on the politics that fueled the war.” —Anne Eliot Feldman, The Washington Independent Review of Books
“Writer to Watch” —Apple Books
“Christine Grillo’s debut novel is a wry look at our it-could-happen-here dis-Union, one that might just remind us all to take ourselves, and our arguments, less seriously. Great fun.” ―Alice McDermott, author of What About the Baby?
“Warning: Do not pick up Hestia Strikes a Match without clearing your calendar. I could not put down this pitch-perfect dark comedy. I fell in love, and so will you.”
―Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
“Hestia Strikes a Match made me laugh out loud and tear up at the same time, as it combines wry satire with a moving story of how we form bonds of love and friend-ship even as the world around us is crumbling. Hestia is everything I could wish for in a character―quirky, smart, infuriating, broken, wise, and funny as hell.”
―Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek
“Astonishing. Intense. Funny. Smart. There are so many things to root for here. Will America win? Will Hestia find her match? Will the dear members of Hestia’s community survive? Hestia Strikes a Match is the novel I didn’t know I needed. I loved it.”
―Jessica Francis Kane, author of Rules for Visiting
“Extremely wise and deeply funny, this debut gives us a riotously irreverent, effortlessly firecracking pair of Socratic dialogues: one between generations debating how to find love or whether to seek it at all, and the other between citizens trying to figure out how to save their country.”
―Carlene Bauer, author of Girls They Write Songs About
“A rom-com about the ups and downs of dating, but it’s set during the next American civil war in the very near future. Right?! This very funny, very sad and sweet, and very Baltimore book is about finding connection in a world where everything has been turned inside out. Sound familiar? Just read it: it’s wonderful, it’s relevant, it’s so good.”
―Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You