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| Critics: |
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 contours of what it meant to be female-bodied in a male-dominated profession.
By the time they were 19, 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. Soon immersed in the world of firefighting and its arcana—from specialized tools named for the fire pioneers who invented them, to the back-breaking labor of racing against time to create firebreaks—Selby began to find an internal balance. Then, after two years of ragtag contract firefighting, Selby 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. Marked out in a sea of machismo, Selby was simultaneously hyper visible and invisible, and Hotshot deftly parses the odd mix of camaraderie and rampant sexism they experienced on their fire crews, and how, when challenged, it resulted in 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, followed by years of research into the science and history of fire, Hotshot also reckons with our fraught stewardship of the land—how federal fire policy is maladapted to the realities of fire-prone landscapes and how it has led to ever more severe fire seasons.
Hotshot is a work of intimacy and authority, nimbly merging a personal journey of reinvention and self-acceptance with expert insight into the textured history of ecological systems and Indigenous land tending, the modern practices that have led to their imbalance, and the people who fight fire.
"Selby molds personal and ecological acceptance into a moving narrative about fire and humanity...With visceral prose, they bring readers directly to the heat and intensity of the front lines day and night...Deeply researched...With fortitude and admirable vulnerability, Selby brings readers directly into a tumultuous time and place. Like fire, this book burns hot." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A fierce examination of identity, climate change, and the shortcomings of U.S. fire policy...Poetic, wise, and haunting, this seamless blend of memoir and science writing leaves a mark." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"What a wonderful, compassionate, sharply observed, beautifully researched, open-hearted book. Selby has lived a big, courageous life, and that largesse is evident on every page, in the form of the rigor and curiosity of the narrative voice. Ostensibly about fire-fighting, Hotshot turns out to be a beautiful reflection on justice, the environment, the self, and much more." —George Saunders, Booker Prize-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
"River Selby is the real deal. A writer who seems fearless, who is honest and fierce—and this stunning memoir of fighting wildfires is spectacular...and alive with grit and action and poetry." —Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize-finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Good Night, Irene
River Selby is a former hotshot and wildland firefighter, a writer, and a nonbinary person. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University; they are currently pursuing their PhD. They were the recipient of the Emerging Writer's Prize for Fiction from Boulevard Magazine for their story, "How Certain Fires Burn." Their writing has appeared in the New Ohio Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Vox, and High Country News. They currently live in Tallahassee, Florida.
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