[.ca] The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy (ISBN 0385496850)

From Amazon.com:
As some 9,000 people watched the Wallendas begin their high-wire act on July 6, 1944, a fire started on the sidewall of the big top at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of 6,000 gallons of white gasoline and 18,000 pounds of paraffin; common practice for circuses at the time. In minutes, the entire tent was engulfed in flames. In the rush for the exits, people were trampled and burned--some beyond recognition. In the end, 167 were dead and 487 injured, of whom 140 required hospitalization. The city of Hartford, Connecticut, would never be the same. Stewart O'Nan brings his storytelling ability to the tragedy of The Circus Fire. 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. O'Nan interviewed dozens of witnesses and examined police reports, newspaper accounts, and court documents while researching the fire. The result is an engrossing--though agonizingly painful--account of the great fire and its aftermath. He probes the tragedy's enduring mysteries--How did the fire start? Who are the unidentified victims? Who is Little Miss 1565?--and offers up conclusions of his own. He also provides remarkable vignettes of panic, heroism, and grief: Merle Evans and the band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever," the circus disaster march, over and over; Bill Curlee, standing atop the wild animal chute throwing trapped children to safety; the Cote sisters, who made it home safely then broke down when asked why they were back so early. O'Nan tells their stories with compassion--albeit with a slight tendency toward the macabre. Moving, saddening, gruesome--yet car-crash compelling--The Circus Fire is a gripping read. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney

The Show Did Not Go On:
Compelling story about the devistating effects of fire on women and children. Shows the lack of preparedness, back then, of the entire emergency system from fire department to hospital. Shows how an excellent fire investigator can 'peel back the onion' and finds information through good synthesis and analysis of the facts. Brings to bear the life safety issues of large public events.

Riveting and Haunting:
A very thorough account of the Circus Fire in Hartford in 1944. I was transported back to a time and place I never knew and felt as if I were there. I had heard of the unidentified little blonde girl, but thought I had read that she was indentified. After reading this, one is left wondering once again. I read this in one sitting and I would imagine you will also.

Horror at the Big Top:
I chose this book as a native of CT who had read newspaper articles about the Hartford circus fire over the years. This disaster was of a magnitude that kept it from being completely forgotten by CT residents, even after forty or fifty years had passed. As a child just getting into the habit of reading newspapers, I noted mentions of the tragedy at anniversaries and after the "solving" of the identity of a little girl known only as Miss 1565. Later, as an adult living far away from CT, I became even more intrigued about this monumental occurrence after reading a review of Mr. O'Nan's book. I resolved to buy the book and find out more about the circumstances of that warm July day. It turned out that the book, aside from quenching my desire to be more informed about the circus fire, was an excellently researched and wonderfully composed read. The accounts of eye witnesses were plentiful and detailed, the statistics were clear and concise, and the phrases were turned in a way that was enjoyable to read, even despite the gruesome subject matter. Background from before the actual happening, minute details during the conflagration, and narrative of the many aspects of the aftermath were blended together in a non-fiction depiction which avoided the dryness of a historical tome. This was one of those books that I could not put down, reading it from start to finish in one day. My advice to Mr. O'Nan is to find another subject that you can present with equal depth and panache and my advice to a prospective reader is to grab this book and dive right in.

Horror at the Big Top:
I chose this book as a native of CT who had read newspaper articles about the Hartford circus fire over the years. This disaster was of a magnitude that kept it from being completely forgotten by CT residents, even after forty or fifty years had passed. As a child just getting into the habit of reading newspapers, I noted mentions of the tragedy at anniversaries and after the "solving" of the identity of a little girl known only as Miss 1565. Later, as an adult living far away from CT, I became even more intrigued about this monumental occurrence after reading a review of Mr. O'Nan's book. I resolved to buy the book and find out more about the circumstances of that warm July day. It turned out that the book, aside from quenching my desire to be more informed about the circus fire, was an excellently researched and wonderfully composed read. The accounts of eye witnesses were plentiful and detailed, the statistics were clear and concise, and the phrases were turned in a way that was enjoyable to read, even despite the gruesome subject matter. Background from before the actual happening, minute details during the conflagration, and narrative of the many aspects of the aftermath were blended together in a non-fiction depiction which avoided the dryness of a historical tome. This was one of those books that I could not put down, reading it from start to finish in one day. My advice to Mr. O'Nan is to find another subject that you can present with equal depth and panache and my advice to a prospective reader is to grab this book and dive right in.

A keeper!:
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.