Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.37092274461
EAN: 9781586483104
ISBN: 1586483102
Label: PublicAffairs
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2007-01-29
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Studio: PublicAffairs

The men in Charles Kenney's family have been drawn to firefighting since his grandfather Charles "Pops" Kenney joined the Boston Fire Department in 1932. In his working class, Irish-Catholic neighborhood, there were other jobs that offered a decent wage, but none had the sense of belonging that comes with being a fireman, or the purity of purpose that comes with saving lives. Pops was on the scene of the notorious Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942; the author's father, "Sonny" served with distinction until an explosion blew him from a third-story window; and two of the author's brothers were "sparks" as children, amateur firefighters, whose career goals were thwarted by a court order integrating the Boston fire department and changing the rules for employment forever. One became a cop, the other a paramedic and rescue man with an elite squad sent to Ground Zero in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center. Spanning sixty years of firefighting history in America, Rescue Men captures what it's really like to be a fireman.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Rescue Men
Comment: This is a very insightful and interesting read. It gives the reader a chance to actually follow the lives of a true firefighter family, the trials and tribulations of life surrounding the job. Hard to put it down as it begins to really take shape.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than I thought.
Comment: First let me say this I did not pay the cover price for this book and that helped with my review.
As a firefighter for a city just north of Boston; I found this book to be very good for many reasons. First it was about fires I remember hearing about. I was not alive for some of them, but I did hear about them from men in the fire service. I am also intrigued by the local nature of this book. I know many of the locations described throughout the book. I can remember the scenes that he paints.
As some other reviews indicate there is some jumping around but then again Kenney does a decent job of staying on track. I viewed it more of parallel stories. He would talk about something happening in his actual family and then tell a story about a major event happening in the "other" family the BFD.
So as a member of the fire service and the local community I can offer a somewhat bias opinion. The book is good and even better if you get it for a bargain.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Real life
Comment: My grandfather was a Boston policeman, and he had to remove bodies from the Cocoanut Grove. My grandmother said he had nightmares for years after The Grove. The author has been accused of playing on his father's alcoholism-- Lots of people are alcoholics. Alcoholism runs in families. It runs in Irish families, it runs in African American families, and in the families of some firemen and policmen. That's life. Better to talk about it than sweep it under the rug. I'm glad Charles' dad got sober.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Comment: In my opinion, the title did not reflect the content. I found it to be a mean-spirited diatribe against the author's father with many anecdotal vignettes that did not have any thing to do with the Rescue Men theme. Although there were some real stories about real rescue men, they were few and far between and I found it to be at times confusing as the author jumps around with the stories as he seemed to focus more on his father's weaknesses. It was disappointing.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A "who dun it" and the human side of heroism
Comment: Why would anyone, ever, run into a burning building, and why would a retired firefighter care about how a decades-old fire that killed 492 people started? Charles Kenney, in his story about generations of firefighters and rescue men, offers a rare and compelling look at some of these special people, their motivation, their families, their lives. This book gives us a glimpse of the hearts and souls under the uniforms. It is a sympathetic tribute to some of our communities' first responders, and all the more meaningful in our post 9/11 world.

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