“A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living. . . . Maclean’s search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. . . . A classic.”

New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice as one of the Best Books of 1992

“A taut, terrifying yet poetic account. . . . Maclean . . . is unsparing in his prose and dogged in his reporting, piecing together the elements that led to more than a dozen men suffocating and burning to death. The story, which I’ve read at least four times now, is agonizing to read, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. It is also one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve had.”

Anna Holmes | New York Times Book Review

“An astonishing book. In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief, and human character. . . . Maclean’s last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory.”

Timothy Foote | USA Today

“Maclean is always with the brave young dead. . . . They could not have found a storyteller with a better claim to represent their honor. . . . A great book.”

James R. Kincaid | New York Times Book Review

“Beautiful. . . . A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud.”

Robert M. Adams | New York Review of Books

“A treasure: part detective story, part western, part tragedy, part elegy and wholly eloquent ghost story in which the dead and the living join ranks cheerfully, if sometimes eerily, in a search for truth and the rest it brings.”

Joseph Coates | Chicago Tribune

“Young Men and Fire is redolent of Melville. Just as the reader of Moby-Dick comes to comprehend the monstrous entirety of the great white whale, so the reader of Young Men and Fire goes into the heart of the great red fire and comes out thoroughly informed. Don’t hesitate to take the plunge.”

Dennis Drabelle | Washington Post

“Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of twentieth-century nonfiction.”

John Holkeboer | Wall Street Journal

“A haunting work.”

Joseph Rago | Wall Street Journal

"The bravery of an unsung profession; this is a tale of natural disaster, adventure, and male camaraderie."

Gear Patrol

"Before Norman Maclean was a writer and professor, he fought fires for the Forest Service. When he was a teenager, he nearly died in a Montana wildfire. 'It came so close it sounded as if it were cracking bones, and mine were the only bones around,' he writes. It’s through that memory of terror, thirst, and exhaustion that Maclean begins his book Young Men and Fire. Thirteen 'smokejumpers'—firefighters who parachute into the wilderness—died in the 1949 Mann Gulch fire. With an almost obsessive attention to detail, Maclean reconstructs their story using the skill and sensitivity he honed as a novelist."

Daniel A. Gross | Longreads