Book excerpt: An original, courageous novel, FireWife draws on the powerful Chinese myth of fire and water to explore how women's sexuality and fate are intertwined. Nin, a photographer, embarks on a five-month journey to photograph women around the world. Her travel turns into a search for the truth about women: the women of fire and the women of water. Each of her subjects' lives echoes a stage in Nin's discovery of her true “fire self.” FireWife illuminates the gap between merely knowing and actually living one's true self. Poetic and intensely moving, FireWife is an exploration of contemporary Asian women unknowingly connected over time.