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ttodd86's review against another edition
4.0
Four stars, assuming the reader is familiar with Brown's other work.
mickeymole's review against another edition
4.0
If you liked "Billy Ray's Farm", you'll like this one too. More of Brown's straight to the heart writing.
pbobrit's review against another edition
4.0
I yet to come across a piece of work of Larry's that I haven't liked, and this was no exception. I picked this one right now, as I'm studying memoir is school and this is his memoirs of his times as a firefighter in Oxford, Mississippi. As with his fiction it is a mixture of dark humour and heartbreak. He writes with a masculine, but not insensitive voice, and draws you into that world and the culture that surrounds the firefighter. This one is recommended for fans of memoir, contemporary Southern lit, and just a good yarn.
thebeardedpoet's review against another edition
4.0
On Fire is Larry Brown's memoir of being a firefighter in Oxford, MS. It also touches on his efforts to become a writer. Both from Oxford, Brown is often compared to Faulkner, but Brown's writing style reminds me of Hemingway. He uses a simple vocabulary and clear descriptions but knows how to naturally intensify prose with sentence variations, including lists and run-on sentences. If you're not squeamish about graphic details of human injuries (and deaths) and can tolerate depictions of pet and livestock deaths, you might find this book enthralling. I read it aloud to Christi while on vacation in Oxford, and she didn't care for the content. But I found it fascinating, intense, and even moving.
bundy23's review against another edition
3.0
I was expecting more... You'd think after 16 years as a fireman in the USofA Brown would've had some seriously gold stories but instead these are pretty much all meh... And then you've got the fact that about half of the book is actually about killing animals in horrible ways. I can accept Hemingway torturing animals but this dude ain't Hemingway.
nickie184's review against another edition
5.0
What an amazing writer! These brief, tight vignettes of memoir are extraordinary.
alsmilesalot's review against another edition
4.0
I've read most of Larry Brown's oeuvre and generally rave, I'm a fan of his direct style (which is present in this collection in spades); I had high hopes but, this isn't my favorite; to me, it doesn't hang together as well as I would have hoped and doesn't have the depth of his fiction but I do feel that it gave me a new little insight into what's behind his other stories. Even with those limitations, I can't give it lower than a 4.
ericwelch's review against another edition
4.0
Larry Brown, a Mississippi fireman, wrote these recollections which include some heart-warming stories in addition to the mind-numbingly tragic ones. In one case, his company had been called to a trailer fire. The trailer was half-destroyed when they arrived — “They always are”, — but fortunately no one was home. They discovered puppy on the floor with all the classic signs of death: eyes glazed over and bowels evacuated. They carried him out, and one of the firemen remarked how they had all the lifesaving equipment along, why not give the puppy a shot. They slid the oxygen tube in the puppy’s mouth and amazingly he came out of it. Not all of the stories are as pleasant. “Some of the boys on another shift, just playing around out of boredom and in good-natured [!:] fun, tie one of the nozzlemen into a rolling chair with lots of rope and push him off down Price Hill into traffic. They say his screams were something to behold.”
Brown's early death was a tragedy.
Brown's early death was a tragedy.
leifq's review
5.0
Dennis Johnson's "Train Dreams" and Larry Brown's "On Fire" are linked as I read them back-to-back in a weekend and they each told the “Story of America” in their own way. These are two of the few essential pieces of the perfect “Portrait of America Through Literature” whole. "On Fire" is astonishingly good as it illuminates those particular American qualities we’re all so proud of: The joy found in being good at our jobs and the many joys found in being a part of a family and a community. I can recommend few books more highly. "Train Dreams" was every bit as good. It lacked the high level of heart, but was slightly better technically (Denis Johnson is a master) and added unique nostalgia for a lost America
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