A moving testament to the remarkable brotherhood of firemen, from the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author.In the firehouse the men not only live and eat with each other, they play sports together, go off to drink together, help repair one an... Read more

A moving testament to the remarkable brotherhood of firemen, from the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author.In the firehouse the men not only live and eat with each other, they play sports together, go off to drink together, help repair one another's houses, and, most important, share terrifying risks; their loyalties to each other must, by the demands of the dangers they face, be instinctive and absolute. So writes David Halberstam, one of America's most distinguished reporters, in this stunning book about Engine 40, Ladder 35 — one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse; only one fireman survived. Firehouse takes us to the very epicenter of the tragedy. Through the kind of intimate portraits of the men and their families that are Halberstam's trademark, we watch the day unfold. We come to understand the culture of the firehouse itself, what makes these gifted men want to be firemen, and why in so many instances they are eager to follow in their fathers' footsteps and serve in so dangerous a profession. And why more than anything else, it's not just a job, but a calling. This is journalism-as-history at its best, the story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day. It is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time. Forty years ago, at the age of 28, David Halberstam was reassigned from the Congo, where he was a war correspondent for the New York Times, to Vietnam. His pessimistic dispatches from Saigon won him the Pulitzer Prize at the age of 30. In 1972 he published the definitive book on the roots of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. It and his 12 subsequent books have all been national bestsellers. Less