The Circus Fire [Paperback]

Stewart O'NAN (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Doubleday (2000)
• ASIN: B000VAUK2M
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Heartwrenching, Haunting Book, July 3, 2000

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Circus Fire: A True Story (Hardcover)

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.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A keeper!, August 2, 2003

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy (Paperback)

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.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Piece of Work, July 11, 2000

By 

Roger Long "longrush" (Port Clinton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Circus Fire: A True Story (Hardcover)

This account of a ghastly event is extremely well researched and written. There is no hyperbole, no wringing of hands. The author simply lets the story tell itself through those who were there, for the most part.

Here is but a single stunning example, from p.109: "Several survivors said the one thing they will never forget about the circus fire as long as they live is the sound of the animals as they burned alive. But there were no animals." How much more effective that is, as prose, than the alternative method of saying the same thing.

Stories of individual selfishness and total selflessness abound, as they do in an accurate account of any great tragedy. The author does not omit either, so that the reader comes away with a feel for what it must have been like that hot July afternoon in Hartford, one month after D-Day.

I had misgivings about how well this could be told, before I read the book. Not now. I'd recommend this to any circus fan, to anyone who wants to read something really well written and thoroughly researched.

My only criticism is that the photos, many taken by amateurs, to be sure, are not well produced. I like the fact that they are on the pages where they fit, but in doing this on regular paper, details and drams are lost.