My favorite book by Brown has long been On Fire…one of the finest books I know about blue-collar work in America, its rewards and frustrations. It's also dirty, funny, packed with indelible details and moving in its ground-level evocations of courage and camaraderie. At least twice a year someone will ask me if I can recommend a book to give a man who doesn't read as much as he might. I nearly always reply: On Fire, by Larry Brown. It's a gateway drug. It's literary writing of a sort that says, Come as you are…If you are among the tens of millions who have never read Brown, this is a perfect introduction. He felt life deeply, had a vast understanding of his world and paid attention to what mattered. His basic decency shines through these pages. Among Southern writers, Brown was one of those who didn't have too much syrup in him. His prose in On Fire is fresh, light on its feet, ready for anything. If this book were a restaurant, I'd eat there all the time.

Larry Brown has an ear for the way people talk, an eye for their habits and manners, a heart for the frailties and foibles, and a love for their struggles and triumphs. His fireman’s diary is a wonderful book.” —John Grisham, author of The Firm and The Client

"Larry Brown is never romantic about danger and . . . in this book he goes through his life with the same meticulous attention with which Thoreau circled the woods around Walden Pond." —The New York Times Book Review.

“Larry Brown has an ear for the way people talk, an eye for their habits and manners, a heart for the frailties and foibles, and a love for their struggles and triumphs. His fireman’s diary is a wonderful book.” —John Grisham, author of The Firm and The Client

"Larry Brown is never romantic about danger and . . . in this book he goes through his life with the same meticulous attention with which Thoreau circled the woods around Walden Pond." —The New York Times Book Review.