Review
———

Review: No Two People Are Not on Fire
Author: Chanel Earl
Publisher: The Mormon Lit Lab
Year Published: 2026
Pages: 51
Format: Paperback
Genre: Short fiction
ISBN: 9788234207319
Price: $15

Reviewed by Stephen Dethloff, reposted from his Substack.

I got my copy of No Two People are Not on Fire by Chanel Earl in the mail. Its a chapbook full of short prose. Here’s a review:

I Dreamed That We Were Sister Wives

My favorite story from the book was, “I Dreamed That We Were Sister Wives.” It was funny. I would say it did a great job of capturing what dreams are like.

The story, which is really a long piece of dialogue, starts in media res, with a woman telling her friend about a dream. It starts right up like this:

And I wasn’t upset in my dream.

Which is great. It makes you feel like you’re popping into the middle of a conversation. Toward the end of the conversation, the woman with the dream tells her friend:

I never met our dream husband. He wasn’t there. But for part of the dream I knew that he was Joseph Smith, and for part of the dream I knew he was a boy I dated in high school, and for part of the dream he was your own real-life husband and that felt awkward, and for part of the dream he was my own husband. That’s when I woke up.

This is a great, well written passage. Nice pacing. Realistic dialogue. It captures dreams perfectly. The idea that they’re defined by what isn’t explicitly in them. Your explanations make sense of it all. Some things are inexplicably know.

It actually reminds me a lot of the ending of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men, in which Sheriff Bell recounts a dream of his own:

And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.

No Two People Are Not on Fire

The title of the book comes from the first short story in the collection, “No Two People Are Not on Fire.” The title is the reason I backed the kickstarter to begin with. It reminded me of the Henry B. Eyring story that he has brought up a few times:

April 2004

When I was a young man, I served as counselor to a wise district president in the Church. He tried to teach me. One of the things I remember wondering about was this advice he gave: “When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.”

I thought then that he was pessimistic. Now, more than 40 years later, I can see how well he understood the world and life.

October 2018

Many years ago, I was first counselor to a district president in the eastern United States. More than once, as we were driving to our little branches, he said to me, “Hal, when you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.” Not only was he right, but I have learned over the years that he was too low in his estimate. Today I wish to encourage you in the troubles you face.

Just recently, I saw on Chanel’s substack that she actually based the story on the Eyring anecdote. She references it in this post:

Prose & Substance

A lot of the prose reminded me of how my grandmother on my mother’s side talks. It is very familiar and earnest. Lots of funny asides. Quips.

The substance is also very earnest. A lot of times the content is serious or weighty. So, there’s a notable contrast / juxtaposition between the familiar, quirky prose and the weighty substance of the stories. This is, I think, best exemplified in the story “Names are Always Changed to Protect the Innocent.”

In this story, the narrator explains how they change the names of the people they write about with those of Biblical characters:

And when I write that my friend Lazarus—who is seven years old and spent the last twelve months receiving regular injections of chemical poison through a port in his chest—just returned from a trip to Disney World and decided—after losing his leg, his hair, and most of his body weight—to stop chemo, that his name has been changed too.

For me, the one time I don’t think the juxtaposition of prose / substance works is in the story, “Behold.” And, I think it’s because the voice of the author is so strong, that I couldn’t move past it and connect it to the main character of the story—Jesus.

My issue with this story ties back into the whole, “That’s not my Jesus…” thing. Which is, you know, “my understanding of Jesus is different from yours. So, there’s some dissonance going on as you share your version.”

It reminds me of when someone explains to me how they love The Chosen, and that it has helped them learn so much about Jesus. And, then I hear them describe the Jesus they’ve come to know through the TV Show, I’m always like, “that doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know…”

This idea of reminds me a bit of Expressions of Jesus. Different perspectives. Different views. Some more unfamiliar than others.

The whole thing takes me back to the 2nd commandment given to Moses:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Is Byzantine Iconoclasm the right way to go? Should we forego all representations of Jesus and God in media?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does have some guidelines in its handbook regarding the representation of God the Father. Section 20.5.6:

God the Father and the Holy Ghost are not to be portrayed in meetings, dramas, or musicals.

If the Savior is portrayed, it must be with reverence and dignity. Only men of wholesome personal character should be considered for the part. The person who portrays the Savior should not sing or dance. When speaking, he should use only direct quotations of scriptures spoken by the Savior. At the end of the performance, he should change immediately into regular clothes.

The Savior should not be portrayed by children in dramatization except in a Nativity scene.

Come In Under the Shadow of this Red Rock

The last story I’ll comment on, which I really liked, was, “Come In Under the Shadow of this Red Rock.” This was a reimagining of a stanza from “Section V. What the Thunder Said,” of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland.

I like this story for a few reasons.

First of all, I love intertextuality. Basing a short story on this poem, too, also seems very appropriate as The Wasteland is fundamentally built on other texts. And, so much of The Wasteland’s meaning, especially in Section V, is derived from its intertextuality. The poem even has a notes section that explains a lot of the allusions, references, source materials, etc. So, Chanel’s story is a text built around a text, that’s built around texts.

Second of all, I like the poem The Wasteland itself. I love the spirituality of it. I love King Arthur. I love the story of the Fisher King. One of the first Substack posts I wrote was reimagining Abraham’s father Terah as the Fisher King.

So, getting to come at The Wasteland from a new perspective, or through a new lens, is fun.

Here’s the piece of The Wasteland that Chanel reimagines:

If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock

The story Chanel writes around it is great. It almost feels like a poem itself. It’s written in prose, but full of poetic elements. Strong Visuals and spiritual allusions (which I love): The Temptation of Christ, the prophet Elijah.

© 2026 Stephen Dethloff