Angel Fire [Paperback]

Ron Franscell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2000

Twenty-four years after his brother's death in Vietnam, Cassidy McLeod returns to his Wyoming hometown-and faces a harrowing reunion with his past.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A beautiful novel of family love and loyalty set in Wyoming, Angel Fire focuses on Cassidy McLeod, writer and journalist from a long line of newspapermen, whose troubled life is finally reconciled through tragedy and loss. Cassidy's brother Daniel, reported killed in Vietnam while on assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle, is rescued and returned to home and family in 1995, haunted by ghosts of his life in Vietnam during the past 20 years. Guilt and love compel Cassidy to suspend his own life in San Francisco to care for his brother. The horror of war and its impact on those who have experienced it are vividly presented, tempered by Cassidy's memories of childhood and his adulation for an older brother and by Franscell's evocation of small-town life during the 1950s. Reminiscent of Robert Olin Butler, Franscell has a wonderful command of the English language and a writing style that cannot fail to capture the reader's imagination. Recommended.?Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

Dramatic, impressively crafted...an important novel of haunting and mythic proportions. -- Melissa Pritchard, Flannery O'Connor Award winner

Heart-wrenching...richly descriptive. -- Denver Post

Reminiscent of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. -- USA Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (December 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425177718
• ISBN-13: 978-0425177716
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,732,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

NOW OUT!
THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB
THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO THE OUTLAW ROCKIES

Ron Franscell's writing has been compared to Truman Capote, Charles Frazier and Robert Olen Butler -- diverse, poetic, evocative and muscular.

This lifelong newspaperman burst onto the literary scene in 1998 with his first novel ANGEL FIRE, a poignant, mythic tale of two brothers wrestling with personal ghosts in the small town where they grew up. ANGEL FIRE was subsequently named among the San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century West.

After his 1999 mystery, THE DEADLINE, Ron became a senior writer for the Denver Post, writing about the entangled past, present and future of the American West.

In 2007, his first nonfiction, FALL, was published in hardcover (followed in 2008 by a paperback version re-titled THE DARKEST NIGHT), winning rave reviews from true-crime legends Ann Rule, Vincent Bugliosi and Gerry Spence. The book explored a monstrous crime against two of Ron's childhood friends in the small town where they grew up, and how that crime has echoed across almost four decades.

Two new books have hit the shelf recently. THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO OUTLAW TEXAS (November 2010) is a quirky travel guide taking true-crime and history travelers to some 400 outlaw- and crime-related sites all over the Lone Star State. Look for the next in the series, OUTLAW ROCKIES, in late 2011, and OUTLAW DC in 2012.

New in January 2011, DELIVERED FROM EVIL explores the entangled lives of mass-murderers and their victims, tracing the lives of 10 ordinary people who survived some of America's worst massacres. Auspiciously, it debuted on the day a deranged young gunman killed six and wounded 13 at a Tucson supermarket in one of the most shocking crimes of our day.

SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB is an intimate account of Ron's extraordinary road trip to the Yukon with his son, where they drank a cocktail containing a mummified human toe and spent the longest day of the year under an Arctic sun that never set. Magical.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Flashbacks, July 9, 2001

By 

Kenneth Blum (Orrville, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angel Fire (Paperback)

I've never read a novel that made me cry - a few movies have done the trick, but never a novel.

I still haven't. But Angel Fire came as close as any to date. Ron not only opened a vein to write this book, he opened up the depths of his heart to create a wonderful tale that weaves love for family, the magical moments of growing up in small town America in the 1950s, and the tragedy of war into a excellent plot.

The story centers on Cassidy McLeod, a disenchanted writer and journalist from San Francisco whose father had been an editor and publisher of a small town newspaper in Wyoming. Cassidy's life is shaken when his revered older brother, Daniel, a war correspondent presumed killed in the Vietnam War, shows up in his Wyoming hometown in 1995. Cassidy puts his life on hold to care for Daniel, who is all but catatonic from horrific war experiences.

The particular strength of the novel is in its flashbacks. Usually, flashbacks are considered a fiction taboo, especially for an inexperienced novelist. The theory is that all they tend to do is slow down the plot.

That's anything but the case in Angel Fire. The flashback chapters and scenes are compelling, unforgettable stories in themselves that establish the powerful emotional bond Cassidy has for his brother. When that bond collides with the tragic circumstances of 1995, it creates the stuff of which unforgettable stories are made.

The flashback scenes represent writing and storytelling at its finest, capturing the innocence of the post-war 1950s, the essence of hometown newspapering and the aura of growing up in a small town as well as any novel I've read.

Ron's style flows as smooth as an AP wire story, and he has an excellent instinct for compelling detail and vivid description, both executed without slowing down the story.

Many literary writers complain that their work is ignored in favor of the Tom Clancys, John Grishams and Danielle Steels of the writing world. But in many cases literary writers create beautiful prose and then forget the most critical element of any work of fiction, whether it's literary, a romance, a thriller or a mystery.

They forget to tell a good story.

Ron Franscell doesn't forget to tell us a good story. In Angel Fire, he tells an excellent story that elevates and embraces the humanity in all of us.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Pain Is The Price we Have To Pay For Memories", April 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Angel Fire (Paperback)

Angel Fire is a wonderful book which I will urge everyone to read. The love these two brothers shared as children and then again as mature adults will delight every reader. The stories Daniel told his little brother to help him avoid feeling sad added to the warmth of the story. The author wrote "Pain is the price we have to pay for memories" and it moved me to tears. Anyone who was grieved can we relate.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Natural Born Storyteller, November 26, 1999

By 

David Christner "dwc" (Slocum, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Angel Fire (Paperback)

Ron Franscell is the master of his domain--words and Wyoming. Angel Fire is a novel of perfect symmetry that details the destruction of one village in Vietnam and the survival of another in the Western Plains of Wyoming. Mr. Franchell's story is told through the lives of two brothers whose journey takes them into the dark places of a collective soul and reveals a bond that goes beyond time and space. The story is told with compassion, grace, and a master's use of the language. Reminiscent of N. Scott Momaday's, House Made of Dawn. Pulitzer material!