NOW WITH A FOREWORD BY RON RASH AND AN APPRECIATION BY DWIGHT GARNER

“One of the finest books I know about blue-collar work in America, its rewards and frustrations . . . If you are among the tens of millions who have never read Brown, this is a perfect introduction.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

On January 6, 1990, after seventeen years on the job, Larry Brown quit the Oxford, Mississippi, fire department to try writing full-time. In On Fire, he looks back on his life as a firefighter. His unflinching accounts of daily trauma—from the blistering heat of burning trailer homes to the crunch of broken glass at crash scenes—catapult readers into the hard reality that drove this award-winning novelist.

As a firefighter and fireman-turned-author, as husband and hunter, and as father and son, Brown offers insights into the choices men face pursuing their life’s work. And, in the forthright style we expect from Larry Brown, his narrative builds to the explanation of how one man who regularly confronted death began to burn with the desire to write about life.

“Larry Brown has an ear for the way people talk, an eye for their habits and manners, a heart for the frailties and foibles, and a love for their struggles and triumphs. His fireman’s diary is a wonderful book.” —John Grisham

“Larry Brown is never romantic about danger . . . In this book he goes through his life with the same meticulous attention with which Thoreau circled the woods around Walden Pond.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Clear, simple, and powerful, and great rowdy fun to read.”  —Time

“Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern lit.”  —The Washington Post