Product Description

The NYT A River Runs Through It. In 1949, a crew of U.S. Forest Service Smokejumpers parachuted into a Montana forest fire. In less than an hour, all but three were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for 40 years, Maclean reconstructs the pieces print.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9065 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 301 pages

Amazon.com Review
On August 5, 1949, lightning came crashing down in the vast spruce forest above Seeley Lake, Montana, and touched off a roaring blaze. As every Westerner knows, lightning means fire, but the fire that raged through Mann Gulch that day was huge--the sort that occurs only every few decades. A battery of paratrooper-firefighters, many of them fresh veterans of World War II, had been anticipating it, and even looking forward to the chance to fight a great fire. Before the day ended thirteen of those smokejumpers lay dead, their charred remains evidence that something had gone terribly wrong. Norman Maclean gives a thorough account of the incident in language not meant for the squeamish: "Burning to death on a mountainside is dying at least three times ... first, considerably ahead of the fire, you reach the verge of death in your boots and your legs; next, as you fail, you sink back in the region of strange gases and red and blue darts where there is no oxygen and here you die in your lungs; then you sink in prayer into the main fire that consumes." After August 1949, he notes, the Forest Service came to recognize that not all fires need to be fought and that fire benefits most forest ecosystems.

From Publishers Weekly
On Aug. 5, 1949, 16 Forest Service smoke jumpers landed at a fire in remote Mann Gulch, Mont. Within an hour, 13 were dead or irrevocably burned, caught in a "blowup"--a rare explosion of wind and flame. The late Maclean, author of the acclaimed A River Runs Through It , grew up in western Montana and worked for the Forest Service in his youth. He visited the site of the blowup; for the next quarter century, the tragedy haunted him. In 1976 he began a serious study of the fire, one that occupied the last 14 years of his life. He enlisted the aid of fire experts, survivors, friends in the Forest Service and reams of official documents. The result is an engrossing account of human fallibility and natural violence. The tragedy was a watershed in Forest Service training--knowledge and techniques have since been improving--and this work will interest Maclean's many admirers. Photos not seen by PW. 30,000 first printing.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Maclean grew up in Montana and was for many years an English professor at the University of Chicago. Following his death in 1990, the publisher completed the manuscript for this book. Young Men and Fire revolves around the 1949 Mann Gulch forest fire in Montana where 13 smokejumpers perished. Maclean, author of A River Runs Through It & Other Stories (G.K. Hall, 1976), is ever the storyteller. Here he crafts two accounts simultaneously. One is the story of the fire. The other is told with special urgency by an old man knowing he has little time to discover what happened on a flaming ridge over 30 years ago. To find the truth of the tragedy, Maclean climbs the steep slopes of the valley of death, projects himself into the short lives of the firefighters, and uses mathematical models to reconstruct events. Although some of the editing is rough, this remains a moving account of humanity, nature, and the perseverance of the human spirit. The release of the film A River Runs Through It in October may step up demand for this title as well.
- Daniel Liestman, Seattle Pacific Univ.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

My single favorite work of non-fiction
I picked up this book by chance, captivated by the title and by the jacket. Since I first read it seven years or so ago, I have returned to it time and time and time again. (Indeed, I am using sections of it in a course I will be teaching soon on men and masculinity).

The publishing world has seen a plethora of non-fiction books on tragedies and natural disasters in recent years, with "The Perfect Storm" and "Into Thin Air" perhaps the most successful. But those two bestsellers pale in comparison with the subtlety, the grace, and the sheer power of Maclean's story of discovering what happened to a dozen young firejumpers on a steep Montana hillside many years ago. In the final fifty pages, as remembrances of survivors mix with a technical discussion of wind and flames, Maclean's prose is so vivid, so pure, so unadornedly beautiful that I had to put the book down three or four times because my eyes were filling with tears. 'Tis a rare work of non-fiction that can do that!

I am a deeply urban person. I know nothing of forestry or firefighting. I have never been to Montana. And I was gripped by this book from start to finish, even as Maclean skilfully avoids even the slightest shred of bathos or melodrama. It is a marvelous meditation on heroism and death, and on masculinity itself, and well, well worth the read.

A unique and haunting story of a tragedy and a quest.
When this book was reviewed on the front page of the "New York Times Book Review," I noted the subject and thought it would not be my cup of tea. The review changed my mind and it was only a moment from the time I finished it to being on the way to the bookstore to get the book and read it immediately. I was not disappointed. This is certainly one of the two or three best books I have ever read. Obviously, the quality of the writing is important. But, so, too, is the fact that this is simultaneously the story of a particular event in a particular time, and the quest of an aging man to resolve in his own mind what happened forty years before to young men fighting a fire in a place near where the author himself, as a youth, used to fight fires. I was more interested in the author's physical and mental determination; a colleague to whom I recommended the book was more interested in the sections that discuss the science of fire and fire-fighting. A rereading will probably lead to a fascination with some other element in the book. But, then, that is probably one of the signs of a great text. Since reading this book, I have been on the look-out for another book of this kind. So far, I have not found one. At times, I have seen this book linked to works that discuss the death of mountain climbers and the like. But MacLean did not write that kind of book. And as far as I can tell, no one has written another book like his. Not finding another book like this is existentially exhilerating. But, for a reader, there is also regret.

I couldn't put it down!
I don't do much reading, but this book kept me captivated from the moment I picked it up. Books based on true stories can be dry and uninteresting; however, MacLean combines fact, speculation, and emotion in a way that keeps the reader clamoring for more. I was inspired to read "Young Men and Fire" after hearing Richard Shindell sing James Keelaghan's song, "Cold Missouri Waters" (based on MacLean's book) on the "Cry Cry Cry" CD. After reading this book, I feel compelled to visit the 13 crosses marking the tragic ending for those men on that Mann Gulch hillside.