This novel of firemen and their families was hard to read. Not because many of the fireman died, but because the novel was constantly jumping from past to present then back to a different time in the past then back to present – all in the same chapter. The writing is clear and even lyrical in places but the book jumped from character to character so often I was constantly turning back to the family diagram to see who and what time period the story had suddenly shifted to.
After I finished the book, it felt as though there were so many stories there wasn’t one story. Each of the various stories felt incomplete in some way. Perhaps a winnowing of the characters and more depth for fewer would have felt more “finished. I enjoyed many of the mini-stories and liked most of the characters, but all in all, I was disappointed in the book.
3 of 5 stars