Customer Reviews

The Fire That Will Not Die

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
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This book was read a number of years back while I was a student at the National Fire Academy in Maryland. As a 20+ year veteran member of the fire service and having experienced two parochial school fires myself as a child I couldn't put the book down. It's a moving personal account of a long term victim of this tradgedy in which 95 students and teachers perished. Many of the survivors faced a complete traumatic change in their lives. A newer book on this school fire tradgedy was published in 1996 (To Sleep With The Angels) and it refers to Michelle as one of the most seriuosly injured students. I'm looking for a copy of Michelle's book for my collection. I would like to refer both of these books to some movie producers. This year was the 40th annivesary of this tragic event. Professionally speaking, a fire like this could still happen again in our country....

The biggest tradgedy was after the fire and the lack of compassionate psyhcological help for the survivors and the families that lost their children so close to Christmas..... and for every Christmas thereafter.

Michelle McBride saved her life by jumping out the classroom window just as the flames were about to claim their final victims. Her body began burning just as she jumped. A second later and she would have been overcome and helpless, and sure to be the 96th victim of that horrific fire. She discusses the ordeal she faced, year after year after year. Perhaps the most surprising fact she relates was the thoughtless remarks of people.

Michele McBride is an inspiration for all of us. Never again will I complain of little aches and pains, after reading what this woman endured for more than forty years after the tragic fire. I had no idea that being burned affects your muscles and joints making them practically unbendable, and also interferes with your circulation. Michele rose above the ashes of this tragedy and can teach us all how to cope with disaster. The most horrible part of the story is how the community in which it took place basically fell apart after the fire. Children, adults and clergy alike were encouraged NOT to talk about the fire at OLA, when talking and expressing grief would probably have been the best therapy for the survivors. I lived in that neighborhood and many people said that the neighborhood "changed" because of a shady real estate practice called blockbusting. I think the neighborhood changed because the heart went out of it when all those children died - the people couldn't cope and moved away.

...

Michele describes the horror, fear, anger, depression, and finally her recovery from the severe physical and psychological problems she suffered as a burn victim from the time of the Our Lady of the Angels School fire on December 1, 1958, until her adulthood. I was searching for some answers on the fire since I was a student at the school also (emotionally injured only). I guess I was searching for something she might say in the hopes that I could find out what happened to my girlfriend across the street as well as to some of my other friends who perished in the fire. I now can say I can't imagine having been burnt and going through all that she went through and is probably still going through. I only hope that Michele is successful in establishing the Phoenix Program for post-burn victims. In the writing of this book, I would imagine that Michele had to find it very difficult to go back to all that had happened to her in the 20 years up to the writing of this book! . God Bless Michele and all of the other burn victims of the fire.

I don't know that one can 'review' such a book the same way you can review a novel about pioneers or a non-fiction work about politics or hunting. This document of Miss McBride's is valuable because it is a historical record of challenges that most often are not written about by the victim, but by journalists and other 'authorities'. This soul is an authority on her own life.

When I first read this work and now again, I have to say that it is a genuine memoir that does not shy away or try to protect the reader. Just as such a memoir of a survivor ought be. I think the pages here are a testament to the author finding her way back despite the lack of pathways offered. That is the heart of this work, that she finds her way.

With medical science now making great advances in treating burn victims using synthetic skin grafts (and hopefully with even greater advances on the way), this book brings home (through the personal experience of a survivor of the fire at Our Lady of the Angels) the deep physical and psychological scars that stay with a burn vicitm for life. The author refers to herself as a "burn," which also reflects her experience in a time when those with scars or handicaps were not viewed so much as people with difficulties, but instead as walking embodiments of their disfigurement. This book is well worth reading. I recommend it highly.

While this book is not as professionally written as "To Sleep With the Angels," Michele McBride describes the deep psychological effect the fire had on her and other survivors. Until reading these two books on the Our Lady of the Angels School fire, I did not realize how badly burned many of the surviving students had been. Severe burns affect the body throughout adulthood. Michele McBride died in July 2001 due to multiple organ breakdown, which perhaps was an offshoot of her injuries in 1958.

Excellent book, I would read " To Sleep With The Angels " first and then this book. That is the order in which I read them and it was very imformative. You get the overall view and then the view of a person that went through this disaster.

I found this book to be so inspirtional. I could never imagine how the children who survived this could move on after such horrible ordeal. Ms Mcbride is true inspiration. This is a must read book

This is an unforgettable tale written with raw emotion and unabashed realism. It is powerful and it takes the reader right inside the head of Michele McBride, a girl who had her childhood torn from her and was consigned to life of pain and endless struggle when her school caught fire in December of 1958.

Sadly the fire at Our Lady of the Angels truly did not die and continues to kill. Michele McBride succumbed to her injuries in 2001, 42 years after the fire wrecked 75% of her body, but she will live forever in the memory of anyone who reads her book.