“One of the wisest, funniest, strangest novels I’ve ever read, narrated by one of the most unique characters I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in American fiction. I treasure this book.” –Christopher Coake, author of You Came Back; GRANTA Best Young American Novelist “…diabolically funny… Brainy and splendidly profane, Rogers’s writing is incendiary and hypnotic. We watch with an arsonist’s glee as his boy genius lights the fuse of his own volatile adolescence. A sizzling debut.” –Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn & 2013 Story Prize winner “…a highly original and delightful debut…. Rogers writes with crisp precision about subjects as varied as science, the complex matters of the heart, and the Great Basin landscape.” –High Country News “The seamless transition the protagonist, Oby, makes … is written so phenomenally well that the reader finishes wondering when the hell it happened. [The book’s] readability lies with its wide cast of well-written characters….characters that the reader will walk away remembering.” –On Fiction Writing “Like Harper Lee and Mark Twain, Ben Rogers has tapped into regional America to scribe a coming-of-age story that is universal in its truths. The Flamer debuts a fine new writer who understands his craft…but even better a writer who understands human nature.” –H. Lee Barnes, author of When We Walked Above the Clouds & Member of Nevada Writers Hall of Fame “… a witty, Nevada-based coming-of-age story…” –Las Vegas Review Journal “Coming of age stories are a beloved literary tradition—Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, frequently appearing on lists of the most influential American literature, are stories of young people struggling to understand themselves and their place in the world. The Flamer follows firmly in their footsteps.” –The Review Lab “Oby’s thought process fits so well with teenage mentality that I wonder how Ben Rogers did it….I really grew to love this boy. He’s beyond stereotype or easy labeling, and I never knew where he was going; I eagerly followed his unconventional aspirations.” –JMWW Journal “…addresses the wily, sometimes dangerous nature of early manhood. Rogers gives us a precocious young man with fiery tastes and curious charm.” –Don Waters, author of Sunland “I liked how Rogers used Reno’s streets, the hills west of town, the geography of this place as a character in the novel…When Rogers wants to be subtle, he can. But most of all, I liked the kid.” –Reno News & Review “Rogers gets the coming-of-age novel right.” –The Nevada Review

I sensed a figure in my room. Soon another. I was half-awake. The room was dark and warm and I was on my side, against the wall. I drifted off again. Then there was a light. It swept through the room, probing, its beam a low-battery orange. A few times it shined on my side of the room but it seemed to dwell on the other. I was almost awake but didn’t roll over. I felt like part of a crime scene. Suddenly my closet door slid on its track. There was a gasp. It was Mom. Then Dad. He swore. I rolled over to see Mom’s silhouette in the doorway, her hands on her face. Dad grabbed a pair of my jeans off the floor and started swinging them at something in my closet, as if trying to fend off a rabid animal. My shoebox of baseball cards was on fire. On the shelf below the shoebox was a stack of World magazines, also smoldering. I noticed one issue near the middle of the stack had something lodged inside its pages, pulsing with an intense red color too bright to look at directly. I sat up in bed. Mom was coughing. That’s when I first smelled smoke and looked up to see a thin black cloud pooling against my ceiling. There was more smoke than fire. The flashlight fell to the floor and rolled to a stop with its beam directed out the window and into the cloudy night, summoning superheroes.