Synopses & Reviews
A decade ago Philip Connors left work as an editor at the
Wall Street Journal and talked his way into a job far from the streets of lower Manhattan: working as one of the last fire lookouts in America. Spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke.
Fire Season is Connors's remarkable reflection on work, our place in the wild, and the charms of solitude. The landscape over which he keeps watch is rugged and roadless it was the first region in the world to be officially placed off limits to industrial machines and it typically gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times per year. Connors recounts his days and nights in this forbidding land, untethered from the comforts of modern life: the eerie pleasure of being alone in his glass-walled perch with only his dog Alice for company; occasional visits from smoke jumpers and long-distance hikers; the strange dance of communion and wariness with bears, elk, and other wild creatures; trips to visit the hidden graves of buffalo soldiers slain during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century; and always the majesty and might of lightning storms and untamed fire.
Written with narrative verve and startling beauty, and filled with reflections on his literary forebears who also served as lookouts among them Edward Abbey, Jack Kerouac, Norman Maclean, and Gary Snyder Fire Season is a book to stand the test of time.
Review
"Philip Connors has crafted a book illumined by the gob-smacked, wide-eyed, inquisitional wonder at creation....Fire Season is for pilgrims, pedestrians, hikers and anchorites, city dwellers, and solitary sorts: a treat for the senses, fit for the long haul. Bravo!" Philip Gourevitch
Review
"Philip Connors's remarkable account of his seasons as a fire lookout on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico is enlightening and well-informed. The surprise in the book is the author's willingness his courage, actually to examine his own naivete about the natural world. His is a most welcome new voice." Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air
Review
"What a wonderful book. Philip Connors went up to the mountaintop to serve as a lookout and he has come down with a masterwork of close observation, deep reflection, and hard-won wisdom. This is an unforgettable reckoning with the American land." Alexandra Fuller
Review
"Fire Season is an urgent, clear, bright book; it is both lyrical enough to arrest breath and absolutely compelling, reminding us why we need fire, solitude, wilderness. Find room on your bookshelf next to Wallace Stegner and Norman Maclean; Philip Connors is here to stay." Publishers Weekly
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"In an age of relentless connectivity, Philip Connors is a conscientious objector. His adventures in radical solitude make for profoundly absorbing, restorative reading. The soul that learns to keep its own company, this book reminds us, can never be alone." Barry Lopez
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"Fire Season is enlightening and well-informed...and Philip Connors is a most welcome new voice." Thomas Lynch
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"Print journalist and fire lookout: When it comes to paying jobs, Connors has a death wish, but he has made the very best of it." Publishers Weekly
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"[R]uminative, lyrical, occasionally suspenseful.... [Fire Season] bristles with the narrative energy and descriptive precision of Annie Dillard and dovetails between elegiac introspection and a history of [Connor's] curious and lonely occupation." Annie Proulx
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“An excellent, informative, and delightful book.” Barry Lopez
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“[A]n exultant take on the natural world....[Connors] describes his lookoutry with understated exuberance, an engaging and measured enthusiasm for being alone in a beautiful place.” Nina MacLaughlin, Bookslut
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“A fine prose stylist with a splendid eye for detail, Connors allows his readers to see the natural beauty he witnesses....All lovers of nature will understand the allure and wonder that Connors so gracefully describes.” Minneapolis Star Tribune
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“[R]eading this book is like taking a vacation in beautiful scenery with an observant and clever guide. So relax and enjoy.” Associated Press
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“[F]ull of wry wisdom and humor....[O]ne of the best books to come out of a government gig since Ed Abbey turned a ranger’s wage into Desert Solitaire.” Outside magazine
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“[A] fascinating, pyro-charged reflection....For a man so drawn to solitude, Connors has a particular knack for writing characters....[Fire Season] proves a nifty way to shake off the last of winter’s cold.” New York Times Book Review
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“[A] lyrical, masterly debut from a first-class writer.” Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“[A] finely, wryly, at times poetically wrought first book....Connors has succeeded in weaving many stories into one [and has found] a voice and new literary life in arid terrain where I, for one, had suspected there was little new life to be found.” Philip Gourevitch
Review
“[A] stunning gift of a memoir. . . . [A] profound (and at times hilariously profane) perspective on the relationship between humans and the earth. . . . Passionate and funny, Fire Season is an exciting new addition to the canon of American nature writing.” BookPage
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“[A] quietly moving love letter to a singular place. By the last page, I wanted to hike up to the tower, sip some whiskey with him and just look.” Los Angeles Times
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“This book captures all that is grand about our western wilderness.” Vail Daily
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“For those lacking the freedom, gumption or plain will power to taste such a romantic life for themselves, simply reading Connors account sure is fun.” Deseret News
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“Compelling and introspective, Fire Season lingers like a good poem.” New Mexico Magazine
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“[A]n engaging and highly readable mix of wilderness reflection, ode to solitude, and reasoned assault on forestry techniques.” AARP Magazine
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“[R]ife with breathtaking moments. . . . [T]o turn the last page of Fire Season is to emerge from a journey that enlightens and leaves the reader hungry for more.” Denver Post
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“Entertaining and informative. . . . Connors mixes natural, personal, and literary history in this remarkable narrative.” New West
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“[A] fascinating personal narrative . . . and a poetic tribute to solitude and the natural world.” Paris Review Daily
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“[T]his is modern nature writing at its very finest.” Daily Beast
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“[A] compelling study of isolation, wildness, and ‘a vocation in its twilight.” The New Yorker
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“Fire Season is a beautiful narrative, evoking a reverent appreciation for protecting some of natures remaining wild places.” San Francisco Book Review
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“Philip Connors is the typical run-of-the-mill U.S. Forest Service employee. Except, you know, he can write like hell. . . . This book is great, like Norman-Maclean-Young-Men-and-Fire great.” Mountain Gazette
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“An excellent book, an entertaining read, and a lot of food for thought. . . . Without doubt, this was the most enjoyable read Ive had all year.” National Parks Traveler
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“[E]ngaging. . . . [Connors] sends thoughtful word from deep in the wilderness. . .” Seattle Times
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“[C]harming. . . . [Connors is] a careful observer delighting in nature and aware of what threatens it.” Bloomberg News
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“[A] poetic, thoroughly researched, thrilling account of [Connors] job as a fire lookout. . . . [I]lluminates the joys of solitude and the complicated nature of life in a volatile, untamable environment.” Booklist
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“Fascinating. . . . Connors narrative is crisp and accessible.” The Tucson Citizen
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“A clear overview of Americas shifting attitude toward its own wilderness. . . . [H]is affection is catching.” Portland Mercury
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“This is a book for all nature lovers, and more importantly, those who fail to see the beauty of the natural world. Connors prose is so mesmerizing, so enthralling, that even the most committed city dweller will be tempted to head for a remote, quiet destination.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
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“[A] lyrical, masterly debut from a first-class writer.” Men's Journal
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“An excellent, informative, and delightful book.” Annie Proulx
Synopsis
"Fire Season both evokes and honors the great hermit celebrants of nature, from Dillard to Kerouac to Thoreau--and I loved it."
--J.R. Moehringer, author of The Tender Bar
" Connors's] adventures in radical solitude make for profoundly absorbing, restorative reading."
--Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air
Phillip Connors is a major new voice in American nonfiction, and his remarkable debut, Fire Season, is destined to become a modern classic. An absorbing chronicle of the days and nights of one of the last fire lookouts in the American West, Fire Season is a marvel of a book, as rugged and soulful as Matthew Crawford's bestselling Shop Class as Soulcraft, and it immediately places Connors in the august company of Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Aldo Leopold, Barry Lopez, and others in the respected fraternity of hard-boiled nature writers.
Synopsis
For nearly a decade the acclaimed young writer Philip Connors has spent half of each year in a 7'x7' fire lookout tower, 10,000-feet up in a remote part of New Mexico. This is one of the most undeveloped parts of the country, the first region designated as an official wilderness area in the world, and one of the most fire-prone: each year it's hit by lightning more than 30,000 times.
Writing with the gusto, charm, and sense of history of Ian Frazier or Tony Horwitz, Connors captures the wonder and grandeur of this most unusual job and place: the eerie pleasure of solitude; the strange dance of communion and mistrust with animals; and the majesty and might of wildfires at their wildest. Students will be fascinated by Connors' story as they discover why lookouts are known as "freaks on the peaks."
"Philip Connors has crafted a book illumined by the gob-smacked, wide-eyed, inquisitional wonder at creation that moves writing about the natural world into the realm of the most necessary texts. Fire Season is for pilgrims, pedestrians, hikers and anchorites, city dwellers, and solitary sorts: a treat for the senses, fit for the long haul. Bravo "-Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking
Synopsis
In the tradition of Desert Solitaire and Shop Class as Soulcraft, a remarkable debut from a major new voice in American nonfiction — a meditation on nature and life, witnessed from the heights of one of the last fire lookout towers in America.
Synopsis
“
Fire Season both evokes and honors the great hermit celebrants of nature, from Dillard to Kerouac to Thoreau—and I loved it.”
—J.R. Moehringer, author of
The Tender Bar“[Connorss] adventures in radical solitude make for profoundly absorbing, restorative reading.”
—Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air
Phillip Connors is a major new voice in American nonfiction, and his remarkable debut, Fire Season, is destined to become a modern classic. An absorbing chronicle of the days and nights of one of the last fire lookouts in the American West, Fire Season is a marvel of a book, as rugged and soulful as Matthew Crawfords bestselling Shop Class as Soulcraft, and it immediately places Connors in the august company of Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Aldo Leopold, Barry Lopez, and others in the respected fraternity of hard-boiled nature writers.
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About the Author
Philip Connors has worked as a baker, a bartender, a house painter, a janitor, and an editor at the Wall Street Journal. His essays have appeared in n+1, Harper's, the Paris Review, and the Best American Non-required Reading anthology. He lives in New Mexico with his wife and their dog.