Ramos & Smith, Smokejumper

[truepenny]

Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America's Most Select Airborne Firefighters by Jason A. Ramos

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


So this is half a really good book about the history of wildfire in America since 1910 from the analytical perspective of a firefighter. The other half is a memoir, and once Ramos gets himself past rookie training as a Smokejumper, the memoir devolves into anecdotes. (Anecdotes are hard, because you have to stick the ending every time, and Ramos and Smith don't.) Even before that, it is honestly not a great memoir; Ramos' and Smith's narrative skills don't seem to trend that way. They're better at explaining things than at telling stories. Which is frustrating because the other half of the book is so interesting, and I felt like Ramos' subject matter in the memoir could easily have kept up, but didn't.



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