How was it interviewing the survivors of the Hartford fire?
Yes, some didn’t want to talk at all, or only talked to honor those who died or helped, while others were eager to talk. Many feared that the story would never be written and were glad I had taken on the project and recommended other survivors to me. In the book, you go into great detail describing the burns, injuries, and deaths that occurred in Hartford. Was this painful for you to write? Describing the burns was hard but necessary. I tried to use whatever powers of understatement and indirection I’d developed as a fiction writer, but at heart the fire was about what these unlucky people suffered, and to skip over that would be to falsify the story. Did Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus’s desire to make a few bucks interfere with its ability to provide safety for its patrons? I am thinking of the way circus employees tied down the tents extra tight so no one could slip in for free, but at the same time this, presumably, prohibited people from slipping out to save their lives
