The House Is on Fire

Content Warning: These Chapter Summaries & Analyses describe a large-scale tragedy, mass death, and grievous injuries, particularly burns. This section also discusses the historical circumstances of enslavement in America, including physical abuse toward enslaved people and outdated and offensive language to refer to Black people. This book also discusses rape, incest, child abuse, and the objectification of women in 19th-century American society.

Sally Campbell, her brother-in-law, Archie, and his wife, Margaret, are on their way to the theater in Richmond. Sally, recently widowed, has bought tickets to a Diderot play for the three of them, hoping to relive happier times when her husband was alive. As she makes her way through the cold to the theater, she reminisces about meeting and marrying her husband and the intellectual conversations they used to have.

The theater is packed, and the three must force their way through the crowd. It is full of Richmond elite, in town for the winter assembly season. Sally is greeted by an old acquaintance, Tom Marshall, who calls her by her maiden name, Sally Henry. Sally is annoyed by the fact that many men still only think of her only as Patrick Henry’s daughter. Marshall introduces Sally and Margaret to his companion, Alexander Scott, a new assemblyman.