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Dennis Smith a “former
New York City firefighter, is the founding editor of Firehouse Magazine and the bestselling author.” He
remained a New York City Firefighter for 19 years after the success of his first book. Dennis Smith is “currently chairman
of First Responders Financial Company and lives in New York City.” Dennis Smith is the author of Report
from Engine Co.82; The Final Fire; Glitter & Ash; Steely Blue; History of Firefighting in America; FireHouse; Firefighters
- Their Lives in Their Own Words; A Song for Mary; Report from Ground Zero; San Francisco Is Burning -- The Untold Story of
the 1906 Earthquake and Fires; The Little Fire Engine That Saved The City; and, Brassy the Fire Engine Saves the City.
According to the book description of
Report from Engine Co.82, “A former fireman in the world's busiest firehouse gives a vivid
day-to-day account of the challenging events, including the raging fires and fighting a fire in the freezing cold, that he
faced during his years of service.”
One reader of Report from
Engine Co.82 said, “I was in seventh grade in 1978 when I first read Report From Engine Co. 82, and no
book I've read since has ever had as profound an effect on me. Dennis Smith and his brother firefighters on Intervale
Ave. inspired me and, I'm sure, many others to become firefighters. The book is gripping and "in-your-face",
taking you into some of the most dangerous and frustrating working conditions imaginable.
I just re-read the book, and doing so rekindled the respect and admiration for
the heroes of the FDNY that it originally instilled in me 22 years ago. Recently a friend and I visited "The Big House"
in the South Bronx, talked with the firemen, took pictures of the neighborhood, and brought Smith's book to life. The
pull box at Charlotte St. & East 170th St. made infamous by Smith's book has been replaced by an ERS box; the crumbling,
burning tenaments replaced by suburban looking homes. All that remains of the horrors that took place there in the seventies
is the memories of daily heroism performed by the men of Engines 82, 85, Ladder 31 and 712 perpetuated by Smith's book.
Now a teacher, I'll be sharing
Report From Engine Co. 82 with my class this year. I hope that with the use of this book, I can inspire the same respect,
compassion, and concern for human life in my students that Smith inspired in me so long ago. You don't have to be a firefighter
or a "wanna-be" to love Report From Engine Co. 82. Treat yourself to it as soon as you can.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of San
Francisco Is Burning -- The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires, “Firefighter turned author
Smith (Report from Ground Zero) performs an exhausting autopsy on the temblor and subsequent fire that devastated San Francisco
100 years ago. With 92 chapters, the narrative effect is one of a nervous cameraman trying to take in everything (the chapter
on Enrico Caruso jumping from his bed at the Palace Hotel is one paragraph long) and managing to make a distant event seem
even more remote. The author takes aim at the procedures of the official response and the chain of command, considers whether
the army did more than the navy and presents "what-if" scenarios that will appeal most to students of how to manage
a natural disaster. An "especially cruel irony" was the fact that saloons were ordered closed on the day of the
fire, yet there, in bottles, jugs and kegs, "was undoubtedly enough wine to extinguish the early fires." Smith too
often pauses to backfill the careers and family histories of various personalities or discuss the tectonics of earthquakes.”
One reader of San Francisco Is Burning -- The Untold Story of the
1906 Earthquake and Fires said, “I love San Francisco and I am fascinated by historical accounts of great
events. When I found this book, I grabbed it without doing any reviews on Amazon (happily, your reviews are dead on). I am
not a "fire fighter junkie" but admit to an attraction to this life and death occupation. Also, one of my college
professors did his Phd. thesis on the NYC fire department so I understand the author's passion for the subject.
I was fascinated to learn that the earthquake did much less damage than the fires.
That's something that most people I know never knew (and I have a lot of San Francisco friends). The role the army played
(to quote a famous mayor) in "preserving disorder" was a mixture of frustration and anger. I also was shocked that
there were so many "mercy" killings (talk about an oxymoron) and killings of people accused of looting. I wasn't
very surprised by the reports of political corruption but maybe that's due to having been raised in Hudson County, NJ?
But one of the most uplifting parts of the book was the way the average man and
woman in the street pitched in and made a supreme effort to save lives and property in the face of adversity and out and out
obstruction by the army. These folks displayed the best attributes of what makes America great.
Naturally, the fire fighters get a
very favorable review and based on the facts, justifiably so. I admire their work but I know I am not brave enough to do their
job - that's maybe the highest praise I can offer. In the final chapters Mr. Smith paints a dark picture of our current
level of preparedness for the next big earthquake and fire. I fear he is understating the problem (the people in New Orleans
know that being prepared is vital). This is a great read - not just for history buffs only.”
The Library Journal said of A
Song for Mary, “Smith came of age in a poor, fatherless Irish Catholic family living in the New York tenements
of East 56th Street. Readers will have a hard time putting down this tribute to his mother, Mary. We travel with young Dennis
from his first experiences in Catholic school, cleaning erasers and feeling the unjust whacks of disciplinary rulers, to the
frightening escapades of the teenage dropout who takes up with bad company. On the verge of felony, Smith joins the Air Force
and then works as a cowboy before returning to New York. Unlike Malachy McCourt (A Monk Swimming, LJ 4/1/98), Smith doesn't
revel in his misdeeds but always hears his mother's voice in the back of his mind. He finds his way into a profession
to which he can give his all, serving as a New York fireman; he is the author of nine other works, many of them about firefighting,
including Report from Engine Co. 82.”
One reader of A Song for
Mary said, “Dennis Smith's "A Song for Mary" is a powerful, emotionally gripping memoir
that is one of the finest published in recent years. Along with Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life", and Frank McCourt's
"Angela's Ashes", it belongs in the first rank of great memoirs written by Irish-American authors. Speaking
of Hamill, it is a Manhattan version of "A Drinking Life", replete with the chaos and woe associated with growing
up poor and Irish in New York City. Smith's vivid prose conjurs up the Irish-American neighobrhood that was once the East
Side of Midtown Manhattan. We see a young, bright Dennis Smith almost drawn into a life of petty crime, yet saved by love
and devotion from his mother and local Catholic priests. Eventually the book ends positively, with his arrival as the rookie
fireman at Engine Company 82, setting the stage for the events he described two decades ago in his bestselling memoir "Report
from Engine Company 82". I am surprised that this fine book hasn't earned the wide audience it deserves. Anyone who
has fallen in love with Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" should also fall in love with Dennis Smith's
"A Song for Mary.”
Kirkus reviews said of Report
from Ground Zero, “September 11 2001 was one of those terrible, defining moments in world history that
imprints itself on to the subconscious in such a way that most people will always be able to recall exactly what they were
doing when they heard or saw the first reports of the planes striking the World Trade Center. Furthermore, there are those
people for whom their actions at the time they heard the news became the defining moments of their lives - the firefighters
who were called - or volunteered - to go to the scene and become part of the rescue effort, many of them tragically losing
their lives at the scene. For most of us, it is incomprehensible that a human being would be able to put aside their fear
in the face of such a terrible disaster and walk towards the heart of the inferno instead of fleeing in an attempt to save
their own life. For a firefighter in the New York City Fire Department, it was inconceivable that he would not do so.
Dennis Smith, dubbed 'the Poet
Laureate of Firefighters' by the New York Post, is a former New York firefighter who published his classic bestseller,
Report from Engine Company 82, in 1972. At the time of the terrorist attacks he was 60 and retired from active service, yet
when he heard the news on September 11 he rushed to the scene and worked tirelessly alongside the rescue workers for several
weeks. Among the dead were former colleagues and the sons of his friends. Perhaps because Smith is a friend and former comrade,
the men who survived the tragedy were able to open up to him in a way that they would not to an outsider. The book is presented
as a series of vignettes as the men - and a few women - recall their experiences on that day and during the desperate weeks
that followed.
He has a gift for capturing the rhythms
and cadences of normal speech, yet using the juxtaposition of the accounts to present a terrible, vivid picture of exactly
what it was to be there on that day amid the falling bodies and the smothering dark dust and the heat of the flames, exposed
to sights most of us could not imagine in our worst nightmares. He captures the fading hopes of the relatives, and their anger
when the rescue efforts were scaled down; yet most of all, he captures the unique brotherhood of the New York City Fire Department,
son following father into the service for generation after generation, and conveys the enormity of the loss of 343 of their
comrades. It is not a comfortable read, yet it is strangely compelling, and the main theme that shines through the book is
a positive one - the power of goodness in the human spirit. A proportion of the royalties will go to the relevant charities.”
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