Young Men and Fire

by
Norman Maclean

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Young Men and Fire

by Norman Maclean

4.02 of 5 stars 4.02 · rating details · 1,614 ratings · 182 reviews

301 pages

Published 1994 by Penguin (first published 1992)

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Sep 11, 2008 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Superficially, Young Men and Fire is the story of fifteen elite Smokejumpers who died in Mann Gulch, Montana, in 1949. The Smokejumpers were all young men, the best of the best in their chosen profession: fighting forest fires. Yet, in Mann Gulch, they'd been overtaken by fire and died clawing at the steep grassy slopes.

Really, though, this is a book about dying, and the important lessons about life that death provides. For it is death that gives life its value; it is death, or rather, the know...more

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Jan 20, 2010 Tyler rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Tyler by: National Book Critics Circle Award

Shelves: non-fiction, unusual

Young Men and Fire recounts the Mann Gulch Fire, a forest fire fought in the 1940's by one of the first teams of Smokejumpers to actually parachute to a fire. The basic story has been laid out in the synopsis and its details have by now been told in various reviews. What potential readers may not have learned, though, is what sets this book apart. Why read it when the plot is already out of the bag?

For one thing, the fire itself forms such an antagonistic element of the story. The author, Norma...more Young Men and Fire recounts the Mann Gulch Fire, a forest fire fought in the 1940's by one of the first teams of Smokejumpers to actually parachute to a fire. The basic story has been laid out in the synopsis and its details have by now been told in various reviews. What potential readers may not have learned, though, is what sets this book apart. Why read it when the plot is already out of the bag?

For one thing, the fire itself forms such an antagonistic element of the story. The author, Norman Maclean, succeeds in conjuring it into a living specter, and this tells us a lot about his literary strength. It will be pointed out, too, that the Smokejumpers themselves are the apparent subject. But maybe, to state it better, it’s Maclean’s awe of the Smokejumpers that drives the telling; he himself had fought forest fires professionally before smokejumping was even invented. His interest borrows as well from the same fascination so many of us mortals indulge for physically elite units – SWAT detachments, Navy Seals or pro sports teams, to name a few.

The author’s connection to firefighting gives his point of view an authentic, even a spiritual, tang. In fact, I would have been delighted if he had developed this further. But what we discover in Young Men and Fire also entails an unsolved mystery: The mystique of the Mann Gulch Fire starts when one of the Smokejumpers, as the fire closes in, does something so startling that firefighters were still talking about it decades later.

This act sparked interest in the unknown dynamics of forest fires, so on top of the human drama we soon find ourselves on a quest. A gnawing need drives the book, a need to find out exactly what unfolded in Mann Gulch, and how the strange behavior of a team member changed it. Could the one act of a single Smokejumper actually have thrown a gigantic fire off course? And to what effect? The poignant loss at Mann Gulch takes Maclean into the emerging science of forest fires.

A couple of small matters detract from the book. While lionizing the Smokejumpers, Maclean doesn't fail to denigrate the other 2300 firefighters who fought at Mann Gulch, depicting them as drunks and useless idiots. And for someone so enthralled with the Smokejumpers, his book is too thin on the human interest details that naturally suggest themselves. The author could easily have corrected both faults.

Yet the prose that describes the fated Smokejumpers can’t be beat. The combination of exquisite elegiac and unsolved mystery drives this book along an inviting trajectory. It even has a section of photos in the middle, plus topographical maps and annotated photos of the Mann Gulch region, which let readers follow every detail of the action. The Smokejumpers and the fire are the subjects here, but Maclean’s obsessed passion for both give this book a vitality that can’t be counterfeited.
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Mar 29, 2009 Al rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Norman Maclean, perhaps best known as the author of A River Runs Through It, began researching the famous Mann Gulch (in Montana) forest fire of 1949 late in his life, and worked on the project until the time of his death at age 88 in 1990. Thirteen young men, twelve of them Smokejumpers, died when this fire "blew up" and they couldn't outrun it. The tragedy evidently haunted Maclean, himself a woodsman, and he returned again and again to the site, trying to understand what had happened, and wh...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: accidents, organizations, nonfiction, science-and-technology-studies

This book has been sitting in my bookshelf for quite a while. I picked it up a couple of years ago and I wasn't drawn into it. I picked it up last week and I was sucked right in. Thus, this book occupies (for me, anyway) that interesting category of book that is highly dependent both on personal mood as well as life experience. I suspect that I have changed a lot in the years since I last attempted to read this book. In the interim, many things have happened to me and I hope that I have matured...more This book has been sitting in my bookshelf for quite a while. I picked it up a couple of years ago and I wasn't drawn into it. I picked it up last week and I was sucked right in. Thus, this book occupies (for me, anyway) that interesting category of book that is highly dependent both on personal mood as well as life experience. I suspect that I have changed a lot in the years since I last attempted to read this book. In the interim, many things have happened to me and I hope that I have matured as a writer. In other words, I may not have been ready for this book before now. Or, it could just be that after four semesters of reading often quite dry academic prose, I was ready for a change of pace.

On the whole, I was very impressed with Maclean's style and composition in this book. Above all, he succeeds in putting me in the Northwest in general and Mann Gulch in particular. I cannot express enough how vital it can be in telling a story for the author to put the reader right into it. One of the reasons I think I like James Chiles' INVITING DISASTER despite a prose style that is not always brilliant is that Chiles is actually quite good at putting the reader in the situations he describes. I felt some of what it may have felt like to be in given disasters. Maclean is on the whole a much better writer than Chiles, and I could almost smell the fragrant aroma of the Ponderosa or the hot sweet smell of the dry grass in the gulch, although Maclean never mentions aromas in his prose.

That said, I will put forth two criticisms of Maclean's book. The first is not fair as Maclean did not live to finish this work and it was up to others to finish it for him. The fact that some of the work was done by others would help to explain places in the prose where the story is not as smoothly rendered as in the bulk of the work. At places I felt that the story was rushed and the transitions were too abrupt. I have no way of knowing, but if I had to guess, I would venture that those areas were where the manuscript was more incomplete at Maclean's death. None of this is to detract either from Maclean's great work or the bravery of those who sought to complete it. But it is nonetheless palpable to a careful reader that not all the prose is of the same high quality.

The second point of critique is that Maclean does sometimes go very, very far out on a ledge with his allusions, such as when he compares the fire to "...a leak in the brain of the universe" (I may have gotten this wrong) or compares the track of the fire to intestines. In other words, there are times at which Maclean sees fit to indulge in quite outlandish metaphor and speculation. Granted that the man was a professor of writing at the University of Chicago and was obviously interested in vivid imagery. Still, I feel it detracts from the story, especially since his reporting of the story is so amazingly alive compared to all too many other writers. Maclean might invoke comparison to John McPhee, and certainly they are both masters of the genre of "literary nonfiction". As much as I like McPhee, I feel that Maclean's romantic soul might give the latter an edge in certain types of narrative. But when Maclean's romanticism goes too far, I start to lose interest, and I reveal to myself my hardbitten empiricist heart.

All that said, this is a book worth reading on a number of levels: as a story of men under duress; as an analysis of people in organizations; as a history of immediate post-WWII America, but also as a piece of writing. I suspect it is the latter that draws most people to this work, and well it should. However, while Maclean should inform the writer, he should also warn. Romanticism is fine - in moderate doses. (less)

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Nov 07, 2012 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thirteen young smokejumpers were killed during the tragic Mann Gulch fire in Montana in 1949. Maclean researched every detail of the story, compiling multiple accounts to give a broad picture.

The book drags in a few parts, but overall it’s a fascinating look at the horrible event. It’s as much a story of Maclean’s research as it is a story about the men. He didn’t begin the book until he was in his 70s, which makes the deaths he writes about especially poignant. When he wrote it he’d already liv...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Aaron Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maclean can really write. Midway through, I knew that he was not just giving a moment to moment account of his search for information on the Mann Gulch fire, but rather guiding the reader through the information in the way that would infect his readers with his own obsession with this event. He knew what he was doing. There's so much pathos begging for context in this story but Maclean was very restrained with drawing conclusions or applying symbolism to soothe the reader. When he breaks down an...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I actually read this book about 15 years ago, but it's stayed with me powerfully enough to earn its 5 stars retroactively. The other night, looking for something else, I came across what I wrote about it at the time, so this is a retroactive review as well, but it still feels accurate to the experience I remember.

Young Men and Fire is Norman Maclean's posthumous book about the 1949 Mann Gulch forest fire in Montana. Sixteen young flame-jumpers were dropped on what was supposed to be a routine jo...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Erica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While this kind of book is not normally my cup of tea, Young Men and Fire went down all right--a spoon full of sugar, etc., etc. The book (nonfiction) is about sixteen smokejumpers who were killed in the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. Maclean pieces the story together bit by bit, teasing at its threads from all different angles to try to figure out exactly what went wrong. Maclean is a strong presence throughout the book--in fact, I would say that the book is even more about Maclean's obsession with t...more

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Jan 24, 2010 Mark is currently reading it · review of another edition

What led me to search for this story was the song Cold Missouri Waters by James Keelaghan. The lyrics follow:

My name is Dodge, but then you know that
It's written on the chart there at the foot end of the bed
They think I'm blind, I can't read it
I've read it every word, and every word it says is death
So, Confession - is that the reason that you came
Get it off my chest before I check out of the game
Since you mention it, well there's thirteen things I'll name
Thirteen crosses high above the cold Miss...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, sylva

In Mann Gulch, on August 5, 1949, 13 men lost their lives in an otherwise unremarkable forest fire. That twelve of these young men were smokejumpers trained to fight fires and in top physical condition was the first mystery. That three smokejumpers somehow survived the fire was the second. That the most senior of these, the foreman, survived by using an unprecedented technique was the third. The official reviews concluded that the foreman had acted appropriately, but they smacked of cover-up, ev...more In Mann Gulch, on August 5, 1949, 13 men lost their lives in an otherwise unremarkable forest fire. That twelve of these young men were smokejumpers trained to fight fires and in top physical condition was the first mystery. That three smokejumpers somehow survived the fire was the second. That the most senior of these, the foreman, survived by using an unprecedented technique was the third. The official reviews concluded that the foreman had acted appropriately, but they smacked of cover-up, even at a time when official inquiries were trusted more than they are now. Norman Maclean, a retired English professor, took up these mysteries to understand the confluence of behavior and nature that led to the unfathomable deaths.

Readers should not expect a professional journalist's account of the fire and its aftermath. This excellent book is more properly a memoir of Maclean's attempts to square his own early experience in a forest fire and with death to those of the young men in Mann Gulch. The book was assembled and published posthumously from pieces the author had researched and written over the last 15 or so years of his life. He pursued his research energetically, collecting and cataloging dispersed documents relating to the fire. He returned to the scene of the fire 30 years after it happened with the remaining two survivors. He even persuaded experts to build a mathematical model of the fire and its progress. Through these activities he reaches several convincing conclusions about what happened in Mann Gulch.

Maclean considers some larger issues along the way. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he can not shake the hold Calvin got on him in childhood. He mentions his upbringing in passing a few times, and in a couple of instances skirts close to issues like grace, redemption and even predestination. He is very interested in the smokejumpers' last moments, comparing them to those of his late wife. In part, it is death itself that the elderly author wanted to understand: what it might be like and why it happens to some a lot earlier than others.

Don't hold it against him that he doesn't answer all the questions. His moment-by-moment explanation of what happened during the roughly two hours the young men lived in Mann Gulch is based on sophisticated science and has the ring of truth. Even so, as has been said in many other contexts, with this book it's the journey, and not the destination that counts.

Incidentally, I got the idea to read this book from noticing the recent (Fall, 2009) obituary of Earl Cooley, who was the first smoke jumper, and the spotter in the plane from which the Mann Gulch crew jumped. It was his job to decided where they jumped, and to tap each jumper on the leg to get them to jump out of the plane. He died at the age of 98.
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Jul 26, 2011 Kyle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Young Men and Fire was a good read, albeit one that was hard for me at times due to the immense amount of details regarding the Mann Gulch fire that took place in 1949 and killed 13 Smokejumpers. As Maclean wrote, "When it comes to racing with death, all men are not created equal." The race was an estimated 1,400 yards and lasted about 16 minutes. Three quarters of a mile doesn't sound that far to run until you factor in the steep terrain, hot weather, and a raging forest fire rapidly gaining on...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Milo King rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-current-events, nonfiction

A powerful, emotional and compelling story, this book probably deserves better than the two stars I am giving it. Frankly, I was not so engaged with it as I had hoped to be - and found it quite a slog to get to the end. The writing tends toward the poetical in many places - which I appreciate - while sticking to what facts Maclean was able to unearth in his 20-plus years of research on this forest fire tragedy that killed so many young men in a very few minutes.

The problem for me as a reader wa...more

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Sep 13, 2010 Jess rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fours-and-fives

Having grown up about 30 miles from Mann Gulch, in Helena, I think I'm probably more interested in the subject matter than most people. However, I thought this book was still really interesting even without having been to the Missouri River at Mann Gulch. During the school year, we would take field trips out to the Gates of the Mountains and take the tour boat, which turns around pretty much at Mann Gulch. When Maclean describes the change in mountain cliffs to prairie, I can see it so vividly....more

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Jul 04, 2011 Aaron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is a great thing that this book has been given to the world, considering how much of his life and energy Norman Maclean devoted to it. A shame, also, that he wasn't able to finish it himself. I wonder how much additional polish and editing he would have done to make it a spectacular read.

In "Young Men and Fire" Maclean takes the reader to the disastrous Mann Gulch blowup and examines it through testimony of the survivors, all of the photographs and documents that exist, personal interviews a...more It is a great thing that this book has been given to the world, considering how much of his life and energy Norman Maclean devoted to it. A shame, also, that he wasn't able to finish it himself. I wonder how much additional polish and editing he would have done to make it a spectacular read.

In "Young Men and Fire" Maclean takes the reader to the disastrous Mann Gulch blowup and examines it through testimony of the survivors, all of the photographs and documents that exist, personal interviews and visits to the scene, and modern computer analysis of fire behavior. Along the way he also looks at the ramifications of the events from grief and lawsuits to it's importance in the history of the forest service and the development of fire science as a whole. The book is *also* his personal story...a quest to gather all of the information, expose it with as much truth and perspective as possible, and finally bring closure to questions and controversy that were never completely dealt with.

Accomplishing all of this is a lot to do in one work, of course, especially when it's unfolding simultaneously. Because of this it can seem like Maclean is jumping around and repeating himself a lot. Also, he likes to wax poetic (literally) quite a bit about the nature of life and death, fire, youth, and old age (his own). He links these and poetic thoughts to the story often...which is sometimes beautifully poignant but other times fairly jarring as it comes in the midst of technical examination of facts and theories. The last chapter, for example, as he tries to sum up everything into something meaningful for all of humanity...I found pretty unreadable for about 5 pages. It was just over the top with soliloquies and poetic recablings. But then it returns in clarity and again offers well formed thoughts that romanticize all of it quite nicely.

Another challenge I encountered (which seems rather trivial but was quite annoying) is that for much of the book I had a hard time picturing what Mann Gulch and the physical locations where the fire and the deaths occurred looked like. The terms used may be familiar to Maclean and those he referred to as "experienced woodsmen" but for me they were obscure. Ridge, reef, sidehill, gulch, fingergulch, canyon, mouth of the gulch, upgulch, upslope, crevice, saddle. Coming across the maps and photographs included helped some, but unfortunately they were poorly reproduced in the Kindle version I purchased. As Maclean attempted to recreate the events with timelines, yardage, speed, and space he included references to points on the map, for example. Too bad for me these were impossible to see on the poor quality jpegs in my version. It's a shame the publisher didn't do a better job on the ebook. Formatting errors were also found in abundance.

If I were unbiased I would have to rate the book on it's own 3/5 stars. It's very hard to be unbiased, though, after going along on the journey with him and knowing it is essentially 30+ years of his hard work and possibly his greatest passion. All in all it definitely accomplishes what it attempts to do and I imagine the need to rework and polish the book into something more digestible (publishable) is what prevented him from doing so. I think if he had had time and ability it could have been polished to an easy 4-5 star creation...a classic, a bestseller. It has the content and legworth to deserve that, I think. Because of this I'm rating it 4 stars.

After reading it I will never see some things the same. A fire danger rating, for example. A short news blurb that firefighters got a grass fire in steep terrain contained. The very real risk of wildland fires and amazing power of nature. The fascinating nature of fire science and computer modeling. The terror of being unable to outrun a 30-40 foot wall of flame. Beyond the occasional tedium I am glad I read this book and would highly recommend it.(less)

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Oct 14, 2007 Megan Pursell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fire fighters, western historians

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I read it almost annually.

My husband was a fire fighter for the Forest Service, but not a smokejumper, which is why we originally purchased the book. However, I fell in love with this tale that covers a tragedy in almost classic epic style, combined with the mystery story of the science of how this event happened.

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Dec 31, 2011 Kiri rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

The narrator has a slightly nasally voice so it took me a bit to get used to. However the narrative is engrossing and I was soon lost in it. As others have pointed out the attention to detail is quite good. The fact that I began to apply my own skills to what was being revealed should speak to that. Not only does it cover the original event, it reconstructs and reveal the subsequent events after it - including the handling of it by the Forest Service and the Government. Maclean also discusses th...more

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Nov 08, 2012 heidi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, reviewed

Norman MacLean inadvertently gave me one of my formative views on writing. I was in high school when "A River Runs Through It" came out. I don't remember much about it, fly-fishing not being my passion, but I remember a crusty newspaper editor saying to a young writer, "Good. Now half."

Good. Now half.

I carried that piece of wisdom around from that day on. So it seems interestingly circular that Young Men and Fire is really two books, and if halved, either could stand alone.

The first half is the...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Denise rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"My name is Dodge, but you know that. It's written there on the footend of the bed. " - That's the opening lines of the song "Cold Missouri Waters" which I first heard performed by Cry Cry Cry (made up of Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, and Lucy Kaplansky). Shindell's haunting take on this song backed with the heart-wrenching harmonies by Williams and Kaplansky made me research the story behind the song.

The Mann Gulch fire was a tragedy, no doubt about it. It haunted the survivors, particularl...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Natalie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book, particularly the first part, is one of the most moving books I have ever read. This is so despite, or perhaps even because of, its apparent objectivity and distance from the subject. The account and analysis of the Montana fire is a monument to the young smokejumpers who died and to those who miraculously survived. It is at the same time a fascinating, clear account of the first forest fire to be addressed by a new kind of firefighter, of which these incredibly brave men were the firs...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this one. It is about the tragic death of 13 smoke jumpers in the Mann Gulch forest fire. It is part narrative and part investigation of what really happened during the final minutes as the 30 foot wall of flames swept up the mountain side at 7.5 miles per hour overtaking the men. Norman Maclean who wrote "A River Runs Through It" does a great job telling the story. The sense of foreboding and tragedy powerfully drive the story forward.

It gets a little dry at times in the secon...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Nancy Hildebrandt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was recommended by an former manager from Montana, and it did not disappoint. The Mann Gulch fire started the day after I was born. My biggest takeaway: at the time, they did not have good theoretical models of fire and how it spread. I am interested in wildfires and firefighting, and I did learn some things about fire, but most of all I was impressed by Norman MacLean's writing, particularly in the second half of the book, when he describes how he did the research to verify the statem...more

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Jan 03, 2009 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the best, and certainly one of the most readable, studies done of a multiple fatality fire. Norman McLean is a wonderful writer who, unfortunately was not prolific and left us only a few examples of his beautiful prose. It is interesting that his style of writing would lend itself so well to an essentially scientific study of this famous, infamous event. He died while writing it and there is a clear break in the book where his co-author completed the text. Even so, it remains one of my fa...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Meghan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I had a hard time deciding if I liked this (3 stars) or I really liked it (4 stars). I wish I could give it it a 3.5. I was slightly familiar with the story because I did some research after falling in love with the song Cold Missouri Waters by Cry, Cry, Cry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgQNeG...). This book certainly increased my knowledge about the fire itself, as well as the many factors at play in why the fire blew up and what the Forest Service was able to learn from it. I'm glad that I...more

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Oct 18, 2010 wavestar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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May 09, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arts-and-historical

On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, The Smoke Jumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned from a "blowup" -- an explosive, 2,000-degree firestorm 300 feet deep and 200 feet tall -- a deadly explosion of flame and wind rarely encountered and little understood at the time. Only seconds ahead of the approachin...more On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, The Smoke Jumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned from a "blowup" -- an explosive, 2,000-degree firestorm 300 feet deep and 200 feet tall -- a deadly explosion of flame and wind rarely encountered and little understood at the time. Only seconds ahead of the approaching firestorm, the foreman, R. Wagner Dodge, throws himself into the ashes of an "escape fire " - and survives as most of his confused men run, their last moments obscured by smoke. The parents of the dead cry murder, charging that the foreman's fire killed their boys. Exactly what happened in Mann Gulch that day has been obscured by years of grief and controversy. Now a master storyteller finally gives the Mann Gulch fire its due as tragedy.
These first deaths among the Forest Service's elite firefighters prompted widespread examination of federal fire policy, of the field of fire science, and of the frailty of young men. For Maclean, who witnessed the fire from the ground in August of 1949, and even then he knew he would one day become a part of its story. It is a story of Montana, of the ways of wildfires, firefighters, and fire scientists, and especially of a crew, young and proud, who "hadn't learned to count the odds and to sense they might owe the universe a tragedy." This tale is also Maclean's own, the story of a writer obsessed by a strange and human horror, unable to let the truth die with these young men, searching for the last - and lasting - word. A canvas on which to tell many stories, including the story of his research into the story itself. And finally Nature's violence colliding with human fallibility.
Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean returned to the scene with two of the survivors and pursues the mysteries that Mann Gulch has kept hidden since 1949. From the words of witnesses, the evidence of history, and the research of fire scientists, Maclean at last assembles the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy; in his last work that consumed 14 years of his life, and earned a 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award.
The excruciating detail of this book makes for a sobering reading experience. Maclean -- a former University of Chicago English professor and avid fisherman -- also wrote A River Runs Through It and Other Stories , which is set along the Missouri River, one gulch downstream from Mann Gulch.

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Feb 26, 2013 Roger Huder rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As a firefighter for twenty-six years I have few books by non-firefighters who understands fire and the men and women who fight it for a living. Norman Maclean does understand and brings real insights into the story. To tell the firefighters story you also had to tell the story of the land and fuel on that land that made that day so dangerous. Maclean sets the stage and when the fire occurs you truly understand and can almost feel their fear as they realize what is happening. This is a classic o...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is more than the account of the infamous 1949 Mann Gulch fire that took the lives of 13 U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers and left 3 survivors, all young men, to provide clues but no answers as to how and why; Norman Maclean has transformed the account into an accounting. Maclean had been a firefighter in the same forests where the Mann Gulch disaster happened and spent years of his life tracking down people and documents involved in the Forest Service investigation and revisiting the s...more

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Jan 27, 2011 robyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, historical

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.

That's part of the official review. It describes the subject of the book - those early days of fire-fighting, those young men, and the biggest tragedy in the history of the Forest Service. But this book sprawls for years in both directions; it's fascinating; it tells you enough about fire, how it...more

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May 28, 2011 itpdx rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lwv-book-group, non-fiction

"In memory of the 13 heroic men who lost their lives in service of the their country fighting the Mann Gulch Forest Fire...on August 5, 1949". Memorial plaque. Norman Maclean visited the site of the Mann Gulch Fire while the ashes were still smoldering and went back time after time during his life. Twenty five years after the fire, he started to try to make sense of the deaths--combing the Forest Service archives, interviewing survivors, clambering over the hillside marked by crosses with a tape...more

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Oct 28, 2008 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Unforgettable true forest fire story. Maclean wrote "A River Runs Through It" - both books are prose as near poetry as any I've read.

an exerpt

"...The world was getting faster, smaller, and louder, so much faster that for the first time there are random differences among the survivors about how far apart things were. Dodge says it wasn’t until one thousand to fifteen hundred feet after the crew had changed directions that he gave the order for the heavy tools to be dropped. Sallee says it was on...more

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About Norman Maclean

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Born in Clarinda, Iowa, on December 23, 1902, Maclean was the son of Clara Davidson (1873-1952) and the Rev. John Maclean (1862-1941), a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who managed much of the education of the young Norman and his brother Paul (1906-1938) until 1913. The fam...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Born in Clarinda, Iowa, on December 23, 1902, Maclean was the son of Clara Davidson (1873-1952) and the Rev. John Maclean (1862-1941), a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who managed much of the education of the young Norman and his brother Paul (1906-1938) until 1913. The family relocated to Missoula, Montana in 1909. The following years were a considerable influence on and inspiration to his writings, appearing prominently in the short story The Woods, Books, and Truant Officers (1977), and semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It (1976).[1]

Too young to enlist in the military during World War I, Maclean worked in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service in what is now the Bitterroot National Forest of northwestern Montana. The novella USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky and the story "Black Ghost" in Young Men and Fire (1992) are semi-fictionalized accounts of these experiences.

Maclean attended Dartmouth College, where he served as editor-in-chief of the humor magazine the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern; the editor-in-chief to follow him was Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. He was also a member of the Sphinx (senior society) and Beta Theta Pi. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1924, and chose to remain in Hanover, New Hampshire, and serve as an instructor until 1926—a time he recalled in "This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon: A Few Remarks on the Art of Teaching." He began graduate studies in English at the University of Chicago in 1928. Three years later he was hired as a professor at University of Chicago, where he received three Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. On 24 September 1931 Maclean married Jessie Burns (died 1968), a red-headed Scots-Irish woman from Wolf Creek, Montana. They later had two children: a daughter Jean (born in 1942), now a lawyer; and a son, John (born in 1943), now a journalist and author of Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire (1999), and two other books, Fire & Ashes (2003) and The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal (2007).

In 1940, Maclean earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago where during World War II he declined a commission in Naval intelligence to serve as Dean of Students. During the war he also served as Director of the Institute on Military Studies, and co-authored Manual of Instruction in Military Maps and Aerial Photographs. At the University of Chicago, Maclean taught Shakespeare and the Romantic poets, and he produced two scholarly articles, "From Action to Image: Theories of the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century" and "Episode, Scene, Speech, and Word: The Madness of Lear." (The latter essay elaborates a theory of tragedy that Maclean would revisit in his later work; the essay is available here.) From approximately 1959 to 1963, Maclean worked on a book about George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn that he never completed, but from which excerpts were recently published. During his last decade on the Chicago faculty, Maclean held an endowed chair as William Rainey Harper Professor of English. After his retirement in 1973, he began, as his children Jean and John had often encouraged him, to write down the stories he liked to tell. His most acclaimed story, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was published in 1976, the first work of original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press. This title was nominated by a selection committee to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Letters in 1977, but the full committee ignored the nomination and did not award a Pulitzer in that category for the year. A River Runs Through It was adapted into a motion picture directed by Robert Redford(less)

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Books by Norman Maclean

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Norman Maclean Reading: A River Runs Through It (Excerpts) Young Men and Fire (Work in Progress)

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Quotes from Young Men and Fire

“As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.” — 13 people liked it

“Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts.” — 11 people liked it

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