Rating: 
Summary: Very well written!
Review: There is no getting around the fact that the subject matter of this book is horrifying. However, Mr. O'Nan does a superb job of relating the facts of the fire without relying on the ghoulishness of it all. (I appreciated that Mr. O'Nan saw to it that glimpses of mankind at its best were portrayed alongside glimpses of mankind at its worst.) I could not put this down. More frightening than anything Stephen King could ever imagine!
Rating:
Summary: Big-Top Conflagration
Review: This account of the big-top conflagration in 1944 is morbidly haunting. What was supposed to be a wartime diversion for approximately 10,000 in Hartford, Connecticut ended up becoming an enduring nightmare. Many were injured, and 167 died during the minutes of the actual fire, and for weeks afterwards from injuries sustained. O'Nan pulls no punches in his account of this horrific event. He devotes more than 100 pages to recounting the minutes while the fire blazed, as well as many of the individual tales in and around the tent. His style is straightforward and blunt. The descriptions of the panic, and the horrific condition of the bodies that O'Nan puts forward will stay with me for a long time.I have long been fascinated by what I would define extreme psychology, or in other words, the character and depth of personality that is revealed in times of crisis or emergency. This book more than satisfied my curiosity. At times I found myself struggling to get through the pages, as stories of heartbreaking loss and tragedy unfolded one after another. The tone is not moralizing, and O'Nan is comprehensive in exploring the perspectives of all the actors through first-hand accounts. Of course there is the above-mentioned rush of panic, but the author also details the clean-up, the categorization and detailing of the sometimes unidentifiable remains of the victims, as well as the legal search for culpability. There are even a few mysteries that further draw the reader in. This book is fascinating, but very emotionally affecting. I recommend it, but with the reservation that the reader should be prepared for a difficult experience that may be too moving for the overly sensitive.
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