On July 6, 1944 - one month after the Allies landed in Normandy - some 9,000 people turned out to watch the Flying Wallendas in the Big Top of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Big Top had been waterproofed with 24,000 gallons of white gasoline and paraffin. Somehow, a fire started, and the potently flammable tent went up like a Roman candle. There was a rush to escape. Merle Evans, the band leader, like some latter day Wallace Hartley on the Titanic, cued Stars and Stripes F...

4 stars. Another great O'Nan read.

This was an interesting account of the time back in the summer of 1944 that a Ringling Bros. circus tent caught fire during one of its matinee performances in Hartford, Connecticut. The tent had apparently been slathered in a mixture of paraffin and gasoline to make it rain-proof...because what could possibly go wrong? *slaps forehead*. I listened to the audiobook which made keeping track of all the names of those injured challenging but, overall, it was an interesting account of an event of whi...

Growing up in Connecticut I have been interested in the Hartford Circus Fire since I first found out about it. It was surprising to be that at the time I had first learned of this disaster there were no books published that were just about this incident. Stewart O’Nan, a well known novelist, took on the grueling task of writing this non-fiction account of the historic circus disaster and hit it out of the park!The first thing that really catches the eye of the reader in this book is the forward

The circus tent had been waterproofed with six thousand gallons of white gasoline and eighteen thousand pounds of paraffin--a disaster waiting to happen. The circus played to an afternoon crowd of 7,000 people in Hartford, Connecticut. It was July 6, 1944, and the circus and the city workers were both shorthanded since so many men were away fighting in the war. The largest exits were blocked by animal chutes where the lions and other big cats were exiting. A small fire of unknown origin quickly

This book was so well-done in every way. It was thorough without being tedious and affecting without being melodramatic. There is an abundance of interesting information in here, from the details of the tragedy itself to background material on the workings of the circus and the treatment of burns. Through vivid descriptions of the mayhem that occurred under the big top in July 1944, of unimaginable injuries and deaths, of parents who lost children and of children who lost parents, the events of

This book about a community tragedy—the Hartford circus fire of 6 July 1944—is one grim read. It starts with an overview of the Cleveland fire of 1942 in which many animals died. The cats looked up at [Dr. Henderson], licking their burned paws, wisps of smoke still rising from their fur. The doctor asked a detective for his pistol. The Coast Guardsmen were there with their rifles for the larger animals. Together they had to shoot three camels, three lions, and a puma. The thing he would never fo...

Bottom Line: A grueling bore about a tragic event. The biggest flaw with O'Nan's telling of the Hartford circus fire is how he tells the story. As other reviewer's have stated the book is super choppy - to such an extent that it becomes unreadable. He jumps from event to event in such a way that it's impossible to follow the survivor's incredible stories. Terms and events are left unexplained and characters are thrown in without creating the proper context.The silver lining: I hear O'Nan is a go...

This true life event was amazing and horrific but unfortunately the author's retelling of events is much less interesting. O'Nan account is choppy and jumps around in time and place to the point of making the reader feel dizzy. He has packed his narrative with so many names and references that it's impossible to keep track of anyone and therefore the reader isn't able to relate to any of them.I ended up skimming most of this book. I wouldn't recommend to anyone but hardcore disaster book or circ...

This is the absolutely harrowing story of a major American fire, one that took place in Hartford, Connecticut in 1944, in the big top of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. 8,000 people were trapped inside; 167 people died of burns, and many, many more suffered scarring and injuries, physical and psychological. It was the beginning of the end of the tent circus, which was finished off by the arrival of television. Author O'Nan conducts an exhaustive investigation into the lives of th...

A compelling read. In 1944 the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus set up its tents in Hartford CT. The big top was waterproofed with a combination of paraffin and gasoline (a common practice at the time). However the fire started the result was sudden and devastating. I had a visceral response to the horror of this tragedy and its aftermath for the citizens of the community.Note: I am guessing at the date read because I didn't enter this earlier. I know I read it at about the same time I r...

This is a great book. Very tragic. I wanted to give it 4 and half stars. Sometimes tragedies are waiting to happen. This was a matter of many elements combining to create a hazard. It took one spark to set off a disastrous chain of events. Most likely the flick of a cigarette or match cost many their lives. This book is very well written and sticks to the story. I love a book that reads so well, so smoothly that you almost feel like you're watching it instead of reading it. This book accomplishe...

eponymous sentence:p28: Railroad detectives found menagerie meal tickets in his pocket, and then at the Duquesne police station, he blurted out, "I know something about the circus fire."missing punctuations marks:p27: He worked through the evening but in the end they were too badly hurt--theyd inhaled flames.p106: As a seminary student, he spent his summer vacations overseeing neighborhood playgrounds in Waterbury St. Justin's was his first parish; he'd been named curate just a month before.Ther...

I really liked this.I have to agree with other reviewers that there were a lot of names being thrown at you and it was hard to keep track. I wish when a name was tossed out in a quick this is the only time we're going to see this person kind of way, that we would have gotten a fast "she survived with minor burns" or "his mother pulled him from the tent and they escaped" rather than just telling us what happened to them in that one second we got to meet them in the chaos. There was no follow up t...

Review posted December 13, 2013: This is the true story of how hundreds were injured or killed during the July 6, 1944, performance of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, CT. The author provides an immense amount of detail, painting a vivid picture of events before, during, and after the fire. This is one of the most heartbreaking books I've ever read. Certainly, the fire was an important historic event in New England (not unlike The Station fire in Rhode Island in 2003...

I read this book years ago and I had a rough time doing it. O'Nan did so well in describing the fire that I ended up with nightmares, my parents' house caught fire and I was in a back bedroom when it happened, it brought back a few memories. It's a very sad and tragic event in American history and unfortunately, quite a few people have no idea about it. This fire took place during World War II, and due to this most of those who were killed were women and children. Well-known hobo clown Emmett Ke...

I have listened to almost four hours (total 11 hours 17 minutes) of Dick Hill's narration of this audiobook. It is unbelievably gruesome. Four hours focused upon the description of maimed, burned and dead bodies, human bodies. Not one circus animal was killed. Now I have had it. That's enough. It is more than I can bear. The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy is written and narrated to shock. Others warn in their reviews that it is gruesome, but there ought to be another word to ad...

Read this 20 years ago, and remember it for its clarity, its treatment of a tragic event, the depth of research O'Nan was capable of.

I originally read this book as part of a book club that I never showed up for. It took me forever to read this book due to a class and other distractions, last winter. However, it heald my attention. It is a difficult subject matter. It was one of the worst domestic losses of life in the history of nation. The horrible thing was the amount of children that died. I actually know a woman, who is a former Lt. Gov. of our fair state, who was a six year old girl and survived this fire. A young circus...

First off, I started reading this book and I didn't have a real reason why. I love the circus, but I knew exactly what I was getting into here: a really depressing nonfiction with a lot of unsolved history and more questions than answers. As I was finishing it today, I happened to read the date of the fire for the ten millionth time... and realized that the anniversary of that fire is today. Just a creepy little bit of synchronicity to bring everything around full circle.Anyway, this book was de...