Hotshot
A Life on Fire
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- 119,00 kr
Utgivarens beskrivning
A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“A beautiful reflection on justice, the environment, the self, and much more.”—George Saunders
The fierce debut memoir of a female firefighter, Hotshot navigates the personal and environmental dangers of wildland firefighting
From 2000 to 2010, River Selby was a wildland firefighter whose given name was Anastasia. This is a memoir of that time in their life—of Ana, the struggles she encountered, and the constraints of what it means to be female-bodied in a male-dominated industry. An illuminating debut from a fierce new voice, Hotshot is a timely reckoning with both the personal and environmental dangers of wildland firefighting.
By the time they were nineteen, Selby had been homeless, addicted to drugs, and sexually assaulted more than once. In a last-ditch effort to find direction, they applied to be a wildland firefighter. Two years later, they joined an elite class of specially trained wildland firefighters known as hotshots. Over the course of five fire seasons, Selby delves into the world of the people—almost entirely men—who risk their lives to fight and sometimes prevent wildfires. Simultaneously hyper visible and invisible, Selby navigated an odd mix of camaraderie and rampant sexism on the job and, when they challenged it, a violent closing of ranks that excluded them from the work they’d come to love.
Drawing on years of firsthand experience on the frontlines of fire and years of research, Selby examines how the collision of fire suppression policy, colonization, and climate change has led to fire seasons of unprecedented duration and severity. A work of rare intimacy, Hotshot provides new insight into fire, the people who fight it, and the diversity of ecosystems dependent on this elemental force.
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Former firefighter Selby debuts with a fierce examination of identity, climate change, and the shortcomings of U.S. fire policy. At 19, Selby turned to firefighting as an escape from their emotionally abusive upbringing, having already fled home several times and developed an alcohol habit as a teenager. Over the next seven years, Selby battled blazes across the American west, including in California's Sequoia National Forest and remote corners of Utah. They alternate descriptions of the backbreaking work of firefighting with profiles of their mostly male colleagues, accounts of their struggles with bulimia, and reflections on their dawning realization that America's suppression-based fire practices were "both ugly and intimately interconnected" with "the impact of colonization on ecological landscapes and Native Americans." "I couldn't see that the landscape needed cleansing by the flames I was supposed to extinguish," Selby writes, artfully paralleling their belief that excessive fire suppression worsens wildfire seasons and their growing resolve to stop pushing down their own emotions. Poetic, wise, and haunting, this seamless blend of memoir and science writing leaves a mark.
