Luis Briceno Briceno itibaren Lac-Ashuapmushuan, QC, Kanada itibaren Lac-Ashuapmushuan, QC, Kanada

I related to the book well since I have studied in this part of the United States and went to ETSU. Lived in the same city. I did not know anything about his work in that area but when I read this book few years ago, I remember meeting his once at a social function at a doctor's home. I found the book very captivating and he has written it with so much of passion.

This is a book that really is sui generis. Maclean's reconstruction of the 1949 Mann Gulch forest fire that killed 13 of the National Park Service's "smokejumpers" (firefighters who parachuted in to stop a blaze at its heart) is an inconclusive and stumbling investigation of the event. He reveals little in the way of new information, except that the cross marking the death site of some of the guys was misplaced. But that hardly matters. This is about Maclean's writing, which is enchanting and, near the end of his own life, his connection to the young smokejumpers and these events so strangely intense, it's impossible not to be drawn into their story along with him. It's a book that makes you think about everday heroes, and everday tragedies, in terms of their cosmic significance, and, pre-9/11, that was a real rarity in American writing. Historical notes: This was only Maclean's second book after A River Runs Through It and thus of interest to anyone curious about writers who get a start late in life. ( George Bernard Shaw is the most famous example of a late bloomer.) Also, Maclean's son published this book posthumously, though it was finished enough at the time of his death in 1990 to be a quite remarkable read.