On the afternoon of July 6, 1944, a fire broke out during a performance of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut. The circus tent had been waterproofed with gasoline and paraffin and the fire spread quickly with 167 people (mostly women and children) ultimately dying and many others horribly burned. "The Circus fire" details the events leading up to the fire (although the worst, this was not the first fire to hit the circus), the fire itself and the ensuing panic, and the aftermath of the fire, up until 1999. There are accounts from victims of the fire, the firefighters, circus performers, and neighbors that helped out, as well as many pictures that show the horrible results of the fire. The book follows several survivors through their recovery and how they are doing years after the fire.

"The Circus Fire" is a well-written and well-researched book. Stewart O'Nan is a gifted writer and his description of the fire and the frantic attempts of the circusgoers to escape are written so that the reader can picture what is happening as they read the book. In fact, he described it so well that I had to put the book aside at times because I was having nightmares about the fire. His description of the confusion after the fire as parents searched frantically for their missing children and how neighbors and strangers pitched in to help is equally moving (and unsettling at times as some neighbors actually charged a fee for the victims to use their phones). He mentions Little Miss 1565 who died in the fire and was never identified despite the fact that her face was barely burnt (O'Nan successfully debunks the theory that Little Miss 1565 was Eleanor Cook). Her story will haunt the reader as will the story of Raymond Erickson who was taken to a hospital and whose clothes were found there but his body was never located. Also moving is the story of how the survivors dealt with the aftermath of the fire; many had nightmares years after the fire.

The only problem I had with the book is that it switched from person to person and it was often hard to keep track of who was who, especially when there were long gaps between their story. I wish there had been a list of victims at the back of the book or at least a list of the fate of the people specifically mentioned in the book.

"The Circus Fire" is a moving account of a real life tragedy. ( )

first line: "They played by the lake, their tops guyed out on the lot by Municipal Stadium."

Even though I'm not terribly far from Hartford, I'd never heard of the 1944 circus fire until I stumbled across this book. The fire took place during a matinee show under a big-top canvas waterproofed with paraffin and gasoline, and stitched together with material that was also highly-flammable.

O'Nan's account of the tragedy is really riveting, though often graphic and sad. For its wealth of detailed information, I'd recommend The Circus Fire to any persons (fiction writers, perhaps?) researching circus or disaster-relief history, the effects of extreme heat and fire on people and objects, or even human mob/crisis behavior. ( )

A moving and very graphic story of the Hartford circus fire. It starts with a brief account of the Cleveland menagerie fire of 1942, a precursor to the Hartford fire. It then jumps forward and gives an account of the two days before the fire and identifies the principals of the tragedy and its aftermath. The story then covers 6 July 1944 in detail, starting in the morning and continuing into the early hours of the next day. The next several days are covered in detail and then the ensuing weeks, months and years are covered, following the stories of the victims, survivors, the circus and its employees, and the investigators. The stories are followed to their conclusions or to when the book was written.

It is very well researched and left me emotionally drained. I did not like the way O’Nan constantly jumped from one place and person or persons to another place and different person or persons, especially when it was in the same paragraph. I realize that was done to show the reader how many different things were happening at the same time, but I still wish it had been done another way. ( )

3475. The Circus Fire: A True Story, by Stewart O'Nan (read 21 Aug 2001) I think this book tells about as well as it can be told of the July 6, 1944, fire at Hartford, Conn. I found this an extraordinarily engrossing read, in every respect. There is a book, The Great Hartford Circus Fire, by Henry Cohn and David Ballior, which concentrates on the interesting legal aspects of the fire which looks like it would also be fascinating to read. ( )

My family is from Sarasota, FL, where the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus had their winter quarters for many years. My great-grandmother on my mother's side used to watch some of the circus kids while their parents trained, and my mom had heard stories about this fire, and then when I was younger, I had heard the same stories. We had known Merle Evans, and he told us about that day.

I had not known about this book until reading about it in a thread on LT, so I thought I would give it a try and learn a little bit more about that awful day. O'Nan presents what is clearly a well-researched, if not always well-written, history about that day, and the events that (may or may not have) led up to it, and the circumstances that followed. After O'Nan introduces each person, he continues to write about these people as if the reader is as familiar them as he is due to his researching them. If you can let go of trying to keep track of who is who (there is a huge number of people involved) and simply read the book and accept the facts as they are presented, you will have a better chance of getting something out of this book. I kept trying to keep straight in my head who was who, but after awhile I simply gave up on this and just read.

Due to the nature of the tragedy, I don't know that it's possible for O'Nan to write this without some sense of sensationalizing the facts, but everything that he writes clearly gets across the horror of the day. The accompanying photographs help you visualize exactly what happened during the fire. The book itself suffers from some writing errors throughout, and these probably could have been fixed with a stronger editing, but they are not overly distracting.

O'Nan clearly researched his facts, and while he tries to present some possible explanations to the cause of the fire and circumstances surrounding it, he doesn't try to present these as fact. He relies on the established facts that have been proven, and draws on these to present the story as best he can. This book won't be for everyone. It was a horrible day, and O'Nan doesn't try to sugar-coat the events or what happened to the victims of the fire. For those that are interested in learning more about the fire, however, this will prove to be an interesting read. ( )