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It is commonly agreed that desire is a self-perpetuating rather than substantive thing Everyone from George Bernard Shaw to Nietzsche to the Buddha himself has commented on the dissatisfaction inherent in obtaining what we want Desire is, we are told, an endlessly hungry beast, and to feed it is only to stoke its appetite If desire is itself mercurial and shifting, womanly desire is considered a particularly unreal quantity ‘The man’s desire is for the woman; but the woman’s desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man,’ said Coleridge, and this assumption is seen everywhere in art and in life, in woman as subject, woman as muse, woman as vessel   Desire always exists for its own sake, leading to nothing, meaning nothing, then But womanly desire is not even for its own sake It is for the sake of others The only desire women are supposed to feel is the desire to satiate the desires of men   This being our history, woman’s proactive desire being a relatively recent concept, there is often an absence of definition when we attempt to discuss it Can we talk about what woman’s desire is, rather than what it is not? Fire Sermon, this thrilling, maddening debut novel by acclaimed short story author Jamie Quatro, tries to do that   Fire Sermon sees Maggie Ellman – a devoutly religious mother of two, married to the dopily, blandly loyal Thomas – sort through the ecstasy and eventual grief of an adulterous relationship with James, a poet Maggie’s affair is largely emotional at first, a lengthy email correspondence exciting her need for intellectual play and earnest discussion of Christian faith with a fellow believer, neither of which are possible with Thomas   There follow painfully, arousingly repressed meetings, at a conference in Nashville and then in New York, and finally, a single night of intemperate sex in a hotel room in Chicago Fire Sermon is concerned with the aftermath of this night, with Maggie’s need to set the act into a religious framework, and the effect this catastrophic submission to desire has upon her belief in marriage and in