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William Styron
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Set This House on Fire Hardcover – May 12, 1960

by William Styron (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars 213 ratings
Conflict erupts into violence between two decadent American expatriates living in Italy
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  1. Print length
    507 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Random House
  4. Publication date
    May 12, 1960
  5. Dimensions
    1.5 x 5.95 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0394444825
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0394444826
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Immediately impressive...the sense of the striking scene...the fine ear for dialogue, the sharp observation of cities and scenery and interiors."

-- The New York Times Book Review

Three Americans converge in an Italian village shortly after World War II. One is a naive Southern lawyer. One is a rough-edged artist with a fatal penchant for alcohol. And one is a charming and priapic aristocrat who may be the closest thing possible to pure wickedness in an age that has banished the devil along with God. Out of their collective alchemy William Styron has crafted an electrifying and deeply unsettling novel of rape, murder, and suicide -- a work with a Dostoevskian insight into the dreadful persuasiveness of evil.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

One of the great writers of the generation succeeding that of Hemingway and Faulkner, William Styron is renowned for the elegance of his prose and his powerful moral engagement. His books include Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice, This Quiet Dust, and Darkness Visible. He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award, the Howells Medal, and the Edward MacDowell Medal.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House; First Edition (May 12, 1960)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 507 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0394444825
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0394444826
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.58 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.5 x 5.95 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 out of 5 stars 213 ratings

About the author

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William Styron

William Styron

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William Styron (1925-2006) , a native of the Virginia Tidewater, was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. His books include Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice, This Quiet Dust, Darkness Visible, and A Tidewater Morning. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Howells Medal, the American Book Award, the Legion d'Honneur, and the Witness to Justice Award from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation. With his wife, the poet and activist Rose Styron, he lived for most of his adult life in Roxbury, Connecticut, and in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, where he is buried.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
213 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers praise the book's sparkling prose and detailed writing style. The pacing receives positive feedback, with one customer noting how the descriptions of locations are exquisitely portrayed. Opinions on readability are mixed, with some finding it an interesting read while others describe it as boring.

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15 customers mention "Writing quality"13 positive2 negative

Customers praise the writing style of the book, noting its sparkling prose and detailed narrative approach, with one customer highlighting how it reflects the author's imagination.

"...The first tugs from the enveloping sea come from the sparkling prose that reflects the warmth of author’s imagination and pulls you in even as your..." Read more

"He is a good novelist. It was an interesting book." Read more

"I highly recommend this wonderfully written book!..." Read more

"William Styron is a brilliant writer. He's able to capture the essence and subtleties of emotional pain...." Read more

4 customers mention "Pacing"4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, with one noting how it captures the essence of the narrative, while another highlights the exquisite portrayal of various locations and gorgeous passages scattered throughout.

"...The same great writing that I was expecting, with gorgeous passages scattered almost everywhere...." Read more

"...the characters are well developed and the description of the various locations are exquisitely portrayed...." Read more

"...the sex people, and the week in New York: these are thrilling and nuanced and sometimes hysterically funny...." Read more

"...One is gripped by the nuances of the story, yet at the same time it's about as depressing as anything can be." Read more

9 customers mention "Readability"5 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's readability, with some finding it an interesting read while others describe it as rather boring.

"He is a good novelist. It was an interesting book." Read more

"...expecting a murder mystery type plot but this is rather boring and uninteresting. I had absolutely no drive to keep reading it or even finish...." Read more

"I highly recommend this wonderfully written book! The story is interesting; the characters are well developed and the description of the various..." Read more

"...his collections, the sex people, and the week in New York: these are thrilling and nuanced and sometimes hysterically funny...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Yusuf DeLorenzo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Patience
    Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I confess. Reading this book is like what I imagine drowning to be like. The first tugs from the enveloping sea come from the sparkling prose that reflects the warmth of author’s imagination and pulls you in even as your toes try the water. As the characters fill out and grow heavier, urging you to lunge in, a barely perceptible undertow develops. As the insidious current sweeps you along, you feel you’re going nowhere. It is then that you realize that, as much as you might like to, you are unable to escape its pull. Slowly, inevitably, you approach the vortex you’ve imagined since the opening pages. Nor should the reader imagine that the final pull will come with the knowledge of its inevitability. Au contraire!

    When Kinsolving says he was dragged to Sambuco, you know just what he meant! When you read that “the sharp horror of being seemed so enormous as to make the horror of nothingness less than nothing by its side,” you understand.

    Then, after all that tedium and agonizing, you come to this statement, and you grasp what your patience has brought to you.
    “I think true justice must always somehow live in the heart, locked away from politics and governments and even the law.” And, if you’ve managed to keep your head above water, everything is right!
    20 people found this helpful
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  • joedud
    4.0 out of 5 stars He is a good novelist. It was an interesting book
    Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    He is a good novelist. It was an interesting book.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Ronnie Tyler
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not my fave Styron book.
    Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I was really torn after reading this one. I love Styron’s writing style and this was the third Styron novel I’ve read.

    The Good: The same great writing that I was expecting, with gorgeous passages scattered almost everywhere.

    The not-so-good: Was this novel really only 527 pages long? Because it felt like I read 15,527 pages by the time I finished it. I think it could have been cut by 100-150 pages. Too many monologues - either the boozed up, maudlin drunk ones, or the sober - they went on for pages. And too many flashbacks, again and again. Many times I thought I just might Set This Kindle on Fire, but I finally finished it in 2 months(!!!), feeling as if I’d been bludgeoned with a Chianti bottle. Read it if you are a Styron admirer. If not, maybe try another of his books.
    48 people found this helpful
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  • Nomy Margalit
    5.0 out of 5 stars HIghly recommended
    Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I highly recommend this wonderfully written book! The story is interesting; the characters are well developed and the description of the various locations are exquisitely portrayed. I truly felt as though I was there in the car driving along the coast toward the blue sea of Capri! Nomy Margalit
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Earle Myers
    4.0 out of 5 stars Work requiring commitment.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Four stars fpr plot, five stars for character development, two stars because the novel was dreadfully long winded and rambling at times. Often very repetitive.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • Guy
    2.0 out of 5 stars At times gorgeous but mostly unbearable
    Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    A pity, really, given how good Lie Down in Darkness is. The first third of the novel — before the perspective is turned over to Cass — is a lot of fun. The sequences involving the movie set, Wendy Flagg, Mason’s war record and his collections, the sex people, and the week in New York: these are thrilling and nuanced and sometimes hysterically funny. But while there’s something beautiful every few pages, there’s also a lot of casual racism, homophobia and misogyny. And goodness, if something can be said in two sentences, it’s said in six. This gets worse when Cass takes over the narrative. Reading about somebody being drunk is about as interesting as hearing about someone’s dream; they are revealing, sure, but of the most dull and mundane bits that we keep hidden for good reason. Any conversation Cass is part of drags on interminably, with his chat partners constantly having to pull him back on course or prompt him somehow just to keep the monologue broken up into something more manageable. I found myself skipping paragraphs and not feeling like I was missing anything. Things tighten up the more Mason returns to the narrative but by that point, my reading experience was as doomed as he and I found myself envious of the release afforded him by Cass and that handy rock.
    21 people found this helpful
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  • Kylee
    1.0 out of 5 stars Long and uninteresting
    Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I had to read this book for school and I definitely would not recommend it. Aside from the fact that it is very lengthy, it is much too detailed in some parts and the story moves incredibly slow. I could not force myself to finish this book and that is something because I finish every book I read even the ones for school that I don't enjoy. The contents is way too heavy and it is exhausting to read. The plot might have been decent if there weren't so many unnecessary parts to it. I went into this expecting a murder mystery type plot but this is rather boring and uninteresting. I had absolutely no drive to keep reading it or even finish. This is the first book I have ever given a single star to.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Queenie
    3.0 out of 5 stars Sad
    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    William Styron is a brilliant writer. He's able to capture the essence and subtleties of emotional pain. He shows exacting insight about life that he uses to depict his characters. One is gripped by the nuances of the story, yet at the same time it's about as depressing as anything can be.
    11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Lyamshin
    4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, but stodgy
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 20, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    It's a great and powerful novel, but it's also ponderous and stodgy in places, not only because Styron takes us deep into the characters' backgrounds and psychologies, which is important, but essentially because cultural observations that should really be delivered by the author himself are ludicrously inserted as conversation.

    For instance, this excerpt is spoken by one of the characters, Cass Kinsolving, an uneducated painter from Virginia, to his friend Peter Leverett. "...it was the sense, the bleeding essence of the thing. It was as if I had been given for an instant the capacity to understand not just beauty itself by its outward signs, but the other - the elseness in beauty, this continuity of beauty in the scheme of all life which triumphs even to the point of taking in sordidness and shabbiness and ugliness, which goes on and on and on, and of which this was only a moment, I guess, divinely crystalized".
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