A True Story of an American Tragedy - The Circus Fire

I purchased the audible edition of this book. The reader was really good. The circus fire is such an interesting and sad event. What runs throughout the story is the thought that this was the CIRCUS. People were there to have fun and forget the war for an hour or so.
I have read several books on this fire, and this one is the best. It is well written, and is never boring. If you buy this one, be sure to have a box of tissues handy!

I did not expect to like this book. I hesitated to read it thinking the story would be hard to bear, but O'Nan describes a survivor spirit in the people of CT that overshadows the fire. The historical facts take you back in time and help understand life in the America during time of war. Americans took the trials of the time in stride. There is a lot to feel proud of in this book. Highly recommend.

I am a fan of Stewart O'Nan's novels, which led me to read his nonfiction account of the Hartford circus fire. I was disappointed. The book is in need of an editor and proofreader. O'Nan's storytelling falters. Each little piece of the story is shocking and gruesome but the pieces don't add up to a well-told tell.

I saw the fact that this book was written in an ad in Yankee Magazine. Being one of the lucky people to survive it, I immediatley ordered the book from the store. When the book arrived I started to read it-but found I couldn't just keep reading. It brought back such memories-the anticipation of going to the circus-a big big treat for us. The dust and heat of that day. Our party of 6, mom dad, 2 sisters(Tibbals twins) and 2 friends. The heat as we entered the tent, the search for seats in the bleachers, up high so we could see, in what I now know was the Southwest corner of the tent. The excitment of seeing the first animal act, the anticipation of the ariel act to follow as the performers started climbing the ropes to the top of the tent, and then the scream FIRE! Turning around, and finding the tent on fire directly behind us. To their credit, our parents got us out, as we were near the main exit. But not without injuries. Bruises and superficial burns as dad hurried us to the exit, mom dropping my sister down to dad under the bleachers as the heat and smoke had got to her and she had fainted, dad rushing us out and telling us to stay together, and turning to get my mom, who, on her own, and who I can still see, walking out by herself-looking OK, but burned badly on her right arm, and the top of her head. Rushing us to our car and out of the city of Hartford and back to Middletown-his stopping at the police station in Middletown to let them know of the tragedy and then taking my mom to the hospital in Middletown and are not seeing her for a long time. The horror that the little girl who sat in front of me in school had to indure as she and her whole family perished. The terrible ordeal my other girlfriend and her sister (the Smith sisters) endured to live. It's all there. Mr. Nan has done and incredible job of putting it all together so that those of us who were little, yet were there, can know what happened and what was done. The fire was never mentioned at home and we were to little to read the newspapers of that day. While I spent many nights picking up and reliving the whole ordeal as I read on, I thank the author from the bottom of my heart for giving it the life it deserved.

This book was sooooo hard to put down... I read it until 2 am every night until I was done. The story itself is haunting, sad, and memorable, especially since it's a true story. And the author, while trying to stay objective, succeeds in making it even more realistic with his detailed descriptions and his obvious passion for the subject. There are so many stories in this book that will stay in your mind for days afterwards. If you like history, or the circus, or just a good story of tragedy and human bravery, I highly recommend this book.

Unlike murder, the disaster narrative genre rarely attracts first-rate chroniclers. More often than not, such accounts are turned out by local antiquarians who bring more enthusiasm than literary skill to their subjects. So it is a double triumph that acclaimed novelist O'Nan has turned his talents to one of the most poignant epics of American suffering: the 1944 Hartford Circus fire. Better yet, he's also done a splendid job at ferreting out the best human resources for his horrible tale and weaving their words and shattered lives--and deaths--together in a spellbinding narrative. Simply the best disaster book I've read.

Stewart O'Nan has corrected a major oversight by writing so comprehensively about a topic surrounded by myth and folk legend. Apparently, the story of the Hartford circus fire of 1944 has never been told in a book, but Mr O'Nan has dived into the deep end of the myths and legends and surfaced with a factual, well-researched, and eminently readable tale of the tragedy. Covering all aspects of the fire and its' aftermath, Mr O'Nan debunks the stories told as truth but bearing none, reveals new and unsung heroes, and lovingly examines the fate of Little Miss 1565, the lovely, unclaimed child who lay so long in a grave with only a number to mark her presence.

This is an exciting read, filled with the thrill of the circus, the horror of a fire out of control, the fate of survivors, and that of victims ....... both those who lived and those who didn't.

While Mr O'Nan has moved on to the Boston Red Sox in his book with Stephen King, FAITHFUL, this was his first foray into non-fiction, and he has done himself proud. This is a great story, told well, and with care.

My father, then eight, and his mother survived the fire, without injury. My father wouldn't read the book after I recommended it to him, my grandmother read the part about the actual fire and said that it captured the event perfectly. She was astonished at how accurate it was. Although they had almost no trouble getting out of the tent (they climbed down under their bleacher section, lifted up the canvas wall, and were out very quickly, so quickly in fact, that my grandmother said that she was horrified to hear screaming when the tent collapsed because she had assumed that everyone could get out as easily as they did), my father, to this day will not enter a tent of any kind. Read the book. It's VERY well-researched, and VERY exciting. A good read.

3 1/5 stars
The Circus Fire tells a few historical incidents of fire and panic in early twentieth century circuses, then O'Nan lends his narrative skills to the true story of a deadly blaze which struck the Ringling Bros circus big top on July 6, 1944. The historical characters are well-drawn, and O'Nan handles the mystery around the origin of the fire well.
The glimpses into circus life, and the lives of the residents of Hartford Connecticut around the time of the fire are interesting. Some descriptive passages seem needlessly gruesome, but it is a book about a deadly fire.

I was bouncing through shelves at a local book store when I came across this book. From not hearing of the circus fire of 1944 I immediately wanted to read it but not having any money on me I quickly scribbled it down on my hand.... Anyway, my point being I had a feeling that I must read this book. so I did. while reading it I had a great feeling of preasure against my heart so much so that it hurt to breath. Very intense. I really felt the time period and the people. I liked the way the author puts the story together. I have to say I did not know the storytelling was going to be so interesting. I don't know if I get easily carried away by books considering I am only 13 years of age, and I haven't read more then 80 books in my entire life! so I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone. It depends on your taste, and me being a sucker for devastating books sooo... I loved it!

This story is incredibly heartbreaking. Never have I read a story that brought such tears to my eyes. This book is not for the faint of heart.......very graphic. But also very good at noting the whole account of the fire in its entirety. A memorable read.

I love reading books on my Kindle Fire. This is the first book where the Kindle format proved problematic. To follow the details of the fire, you really need the large illustration of the circus tent in the book.

In addition, this is unfair but I recently finished reading The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. That book follows and tells the stories of three people and their families. In Circus Fire, O'Nan tries to weave in the stories of so many survivors of the fire that it gets confusing.

I had never heard of the Hartford Circus fire until I saw a documentary on the History Channel last month. I couldn't wait to learn more. This book is one of the best I've ever read. The method O'Nan uses to tell this story - following several survivors from beginning to end - is pure genius. I read this book in less than 24 hours. I simply hated to put it down.
I started asking around about the fire. The majority of people I asked had never heard of it. Now I'm telling anyone that will listen to read this book. This is an American tragedy that deserves to be told.

Stewart O'Nan has taken the research and the true-life stories of the survivors of the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire and created a true historical accounting of this tragedy, and a memorial to the 168 people who entered the tent that very hot day in July expecting a wonderful show,only to end that day in terrible injury or death. I was at the circus that July 6th, a five-year old who was saved by a then unknown benefactor, who scooped me up when my mother was pushed down and trampled upon as we were fleeing the fire. I am amazed that it took 56 years for someone to write this accounting of that terrible, hot, steamy July day. Stewart O'Nan.s book serves as both an historical document and a wonderful memorial to the 168 people who perished.Thank you Mr. O'Nan for a wonderful job

After seeing the author on "Book TV'" discussing this work, I had to purchase it.
I was suprised, this book is an even more moving experience. In fact, at times, it's so moving that it is almost overwhelming. Stewart O'Nan does a masterful job of involking an event that happened over 50 years ago in a fresh voice. In the hands of another writer it might seem mouldy and distant, yet O'Nan makes the reader feel like they've experienced the events yesterday.
This book is a tragedy, a history, a horror story, a true crime novel, a community story, and a legal thriller all in one. It's hard to say that you've loved a book about an event this tragic, but this is one of the most compelling and moving books that I've read.

Even though this event took place in our capital city of Hartford, Connecticut 15 years before I was born, I had heard and read about the fire throughout my life. No newspaper accounts, though, quite prepared me for the story presented here. Mr. O'Nan obviously did exhaustive research and interviews for this book. He actually makes the reader feel as though they are right inside the tent as the fire is raging. And the humanity felt afterward during the identification of the bodies and the investigation into how the fire started and who was responsible is very deeply felt. No detail is left out. At times, even, I felt I was told a little more than I needed to know. All in all, a fascinating read and a very well-written book.

O'Nan has done a great job in presenting this tragic episode in American history. Easy to read but extremely compelling (I read it in one evening). The author does a wonderful job in detailing minute by minute developments, heart wrenching but not too "gooey". In the league of other great disater histories such as McCullough's "The Jonestown Flood" and "The Perfect Storm". This story would make a wonderful movie.

Although I just purchased this book recently and am only about halfway through it, I feel qualified to say that O'Nan has woven together a gripping tale of nonfiction with style and finesse. I hadn't ever heard of the fire prior to receiving this book, which I purchased on a lark, and it makes one wonder about the morality of today's circus and the ways in which animals are treated like cattle.

While I enjoyed O'Nan's prose, I was disheartened by his lack of a "Notes" section at the end of the book. As a fan of narrative nonfiction and student of writing, I enjoy flipping back to the Notes section after reading a chapter to see how the author has incorporated his primary and secondary sources and where they originated; sadly, O'Nan didn't include any Notes section which i felt would have lended his text greater authority.

i always loved the fourth of july. this takes place a few days after the fourth. i never want to go to circuses after what i heard,they are so unsanitary, in january when shrine circus is held, the elephants stinks,to they don't bath them. because a co- worker of my moms kids took a ride on the elephants and their clothes and skins smelled like elephants.

Having read two earlier works by O'Nan, the novels "The Names of the Dead" and "A Prayer for the Dying", and having been impressed with his language and narrative structure in both, I decided to read this work of non-fiction, "The Circus Fire", an account of The Hartford circus fire of 1944 and the following investigations.
the store lists as a requirement for writing a review that the reviewer should "focus on the book's content and context". I am interpreting that stricture to encompass also the book's language, grammar, and style.
I have to say I had trouble finishing this book. While interested in the account of the Hartford circus fire of 1944 I was, page after page, increasingly irritated by a series of vivid clashes with my previous experience of O'Nan's writing ability.
While obviously a thorough researcher O'Nan lacks the ability to condense and formulate his findings into a readable non-fiction narrative. He presents us with a bewildering series of (often very short) paragraphs in which arbitrary changes in subject matter, viewpoint, and literary style are guaranteed to cause confusion. The diversions from standard grammar within those paragraphs, if considered leniently, could be interpreted as eccentricity, less leniently, as affectation. This writer has been writing for too long to be still searching so desperately for a new voice. O'Nan's latest grammatical discovery appears to be the use of ellipsis and he has applied this so violently that on one occasion I had to go back 26 pages before I discovered who and what a sentence referred to. The use of 1940s slang and terminology is unfortunate; it is the rare reader who wants to research out-of-date language to comprehend contemporary writing.
"I did not want to write this book. Why I attempted it I'm not precisely sure." is how O'Nan opens the Forword to "The Circus Fire". The book itself fails miserably to validate the explanations that make up the rest of the Forword in which O'Nan attempts to excuse such a strange introduction.
Not entirely negative, I could use the following quote to point O'Nan towards a lucrative future. "Goodrow was methodical, a plodder, a meat-and-potatoes guy, just the facts, ma'am."
There is always a market for another pulp fiction detective story.

While I am only 48 pages into this, I thought I'd write a review anyway. So far book is good, however, the grammar could be improved. Numerous run on sentences and poor word structure; makes it difficult to determine what the author is trying to convey to the audience.

I first heard of the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries whereby detectives were trying to discover the identity of Little Miss 1565. Although the television episode showed portions of the home movie and interviewed some of the people, this book gives more intimate details of the circus fire. Aerial photos of the blackened oval of what was left of the big top are especially haunting and bring to light the magnitude of the devastation. It is truly a miracle that so many survived.

I had this book read in two days, I simply couldn't put it down. It made me cry and made me laugh. When I started reading about the fire itself I started shivering and couldn't stop. I felt like I was really seeing and living what was happening. Very well written, it makes you truly feel for all the people involved. It also dispells many rumors and wild tales that have surrounded the fire from the beginning. I highly recommend it.

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.

This is a dynamite book. The author is sensitive the horrors of the disaster, thorough in tracking down the causes and repercussions, and manages to be both matter-of-fact and evocative when describing the scenes. I particularly liked the way he debunked various myths of the fire, while tactfully explaining how they'd come about.

Mr. O'Nan should have taken a refresher course in basic writing. His skipping and skimming and throwing to and fro people, events, etc., is downright frustrating and confuses the project. Unlike superior literary treatments (see Walter Lord's A NIGHT TO REMEMBER about the TITANIC),this book leaveS you with more questions than anything else and the urge to take a long, hot shower. STILL, it is vastly superior to the other work about the Hartford Circus fire that is currently out there.