Flames is an example of magic realism, a genre that includes elements of magic within a realistic impression of the world, but it may also be regarded as fantasy, given its composition of mythical representations set in a fictional universe. The book’s chapter titles reference elements of nature, which helps anchor the individual vignettes in real life, but Arnott blurs the line between fact and fiction, leaving the reader with burning questions, and with characters that take the supernatural as a matter of fact, the reader is further persuaded to suspend their disbelief.

Arnott positions humans as living alongside gods and imbues nature as holding wonder and mystery that is never fully knowable; a cremated woman is reincarnated after her ashes have been scattered in the bush, a water rat swims upriver searching for the Cloud God, a fisherman hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal, a father takes physical form from fire. Arnott’s depiction of mythical gods makes links to the spiritual values of Aboriginal Australians, which are built on a reverence for the land and a belief system known as Dreamtime. Dreamtime comprises of ancestral stories about creator gods and how they created places. Some creator gods or ancestral spirits are considered to inhabit the element in nature they created and become one with it, much like Arnott’s Esk God embodies the water rat, and becomes one with the river.

The central plot of Flames is a story about a brother, Levi, and his plan to get a coffin for his sister Charlotte, not because she is anywhere near death, being that she is only 23, but because the women in their family have the tendency of returning to life after they die. In response, Charlotte runs as far away as she can while still remaining on the island of Tasmania, an adventure that Arnott harnesses to interweave various points of view and showcase the rich symbolism of his local landscape. While the sibling narrative propels the story, the story is less about a particular person and more about a particular place: a reimagined Tasmanian that ‘speaks’ and has a history, and that impacts the lives of those who live there. Supporting this premise is Arnott’s technique of presenting different points of view, some written in third person, some in the first, and his traversing the past and present.

Flames won the 2019 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prize and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, a Queensland Literary Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and Not the Booker Prize. A TV adaption has received funding from Screen Tasmania and is currently in development.