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Title: The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan, Dick Hill ISBN: 1-56740-392-1 Publisher: Brilliance Audio Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 7 List Price(USD): $32.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52 (52 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting Subject
Comment: "The Circus Fire" documents the events surrounding the burning of the Ringling Brothers big top in Hartford, Connecticut, during World War Two that killed 167 people and seriously injured many more. It is an event that took on new life in the public eye in the 1990s with the supposed identification of a little girl's body who was body never claimed. This is an exhaustive account, which is one of the book's weaknesses. Author Stewart O'Nan tells the story from the viewpoints of many different survivors, often shifting perspective from paragraph to paragraph. And while this style allows many voices to be heard, it is often confusing to the reader. A myriad of names appear in the narritive and it is easy to lose track of which story you are following. As a result, the victims tend to blur into a mass of humanity instead of maintaining their own identity. Additionally, while the accounts of the fire itself is quite riveting, the later chapter focussing on the aftermath are far less so.
Overall, this is a good book for disaster buffs, but casual readers are likely to find it less enjoyable.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Heartwrenching, Haunting Book
Comment: Novelist O'Nan has written a piercing non-fiction account of the legendary Ringling Brothers Circus fire in Hartford, Conn. on July 6, 1944. 167 people died, the majority women and children. Because of the sheer horror of the event combined with the fact of violent deaths of families and dozens of small children, the story of the fire has taken on a mythic, almost Gothic quality. O'Nan sorts through all the legends surrounding the fire while still acknowlegding that mystery are at the heart of the event. Who started the fire? Was it the psychotic teenager who confessed years later? And what about the legend of the demented woman who pretended to be a doctor at a hospital where the victims were: she supposedly set the limbs of some of them so badly they had to be amputated--truth or fiction? There are accounts of human savagery as people clawed at each other to escape the burning big top. There are also stories of heroism and self-sacrifice. And very gruesome details of what fire does to the human body. Of course there is the story of Little Miss 1565, a small girl killed in the fire who had a mostly preserved face, and yet was never identified. O'Nan is drawn to extreme human situations in his fiction, but he has really done a fine thing with this true story. It will haunt you for days.
Rating: 5
Summary: A keeper!
Comment: I am sure that any decent writer who was willing to dig through the archives and old newspaper stories could have written a good book about the Hartford circus fire. For Stewart O'Nan however, that was not enough. He not only did the research that any author would do when writing about a historical event; he tracked down the survivors. That is what makes this book so good. The stories told by the survivors make the whole story much more personal and much more tragic. On top of all this, O'Nan's writing style is superb. As a novelist who usually deals in fiction he writes in a very engrossing manner that keeps the reader's interest from cover to cover.
The chapters are divided by dates and O'Nan takes each of the several families he follows in detail from their preparations for the circus to the very end. Whether that end is death or recovery we get the whole story. In this way the reader is able to connect in a personal way with the victims. If they escaped we find out how they got out. If they required hospitalization we get the story of their recovery. If they are killed we are taken through the identification process and some of the funerals. O'Nan even follows two of the survivors into their careers as firemen. The reader is also treated to the inner politics of the Ringling family and the power struggle after the fire. Along the way we meet circus people who were indeed negligent, politicians who struggled to cover their own negligence, nurses, doctors, and lots of policemen. We also meet many heroes; many of them policemen and firemen just like on 9/11. O'Nan spares no detail but he never gets boring. The reader will also get a good feel for 1944. The circus was short on workers because of the war. Hartford's residents were prospering because of the war industries. Gas and food ration stamps were so precious that the police were amazed that so many people turned in stamp books found on the midway or still in the smoldering big top. This book is just simply fascinating all the way around.
Finally, O'Nan takes the reader up to 1999, Fifty-five years after the fire. That fifty-five years brings new investigations, new theories, new suspects, and the end of Ringling Brothers' days as a tent show. In 1994 there is a touching fifty-year reunion of the survivors. To the very end, O'Nan handles the subject with dignity and grace. The subject matter is sorrowful and you will be moved close to tears, but I highly recommend this book.
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Title: To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire by David Cowan, John Kuenster ISBN: 156663217X Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc. Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903 by Nat Brandt, R. Perry Duis, Cathlyn Schallhorn , Perry R. Duis ISBN: 0809324903 Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein, William Greider ISBN: 0801487145 Publisher: Ilr Pr Pub. Date: April, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle ISBN: 0871138743 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire & The Mystery of Little Miss 1565 by Don Massey, Rick Davey ISBN: 1930601247 Publisher: Willow Brook Press Pub. Date: 24 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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