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Comments: Don't you love it when you come across a book completely by accident, and end up really enjoying it? That was the case here, as I saw the book sitting on a friend's countertop, was intrigued enough by the subtitle ("Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time") to leaf through it, and then browse a chapter, and finally sit down on the patio (under the lemon tree) and start reading.
The subtitle sums it up well. Perry has returned to the town of his youth, and decides to join the volunteer fire department as his way of engaging with the local citizenry. He ends up serving alongside his mother and two brothers, plus a host of interesting characters.
On one level, it's a collection of stories and anecdotes. Perry is a keen observer of human nature, and has a clever sense of humor. He writes about Fire Awareness presentations at the local grade school, and says:
Before you go in too deeply for the idea that the world would be a better place if we were all more childlike, try sticking three kids in one room with two toys. You'll witness conflict-resolution techniques combining the very worst of the Marquis de Sade and the World Wrestling Federation. The world is like it is because, on the whole, we tend to act like children.
Interspersed with the anecdotes are his reflections about who he is, where he lives and what he does. He talks about the mystique that develops around emergency workers, and about hero worship. He observes that the act of entering a smoke-filled building isn't enough by itself to make you a hero - it only counts if there happens to be a person inside, something over which you actually have no control, or possibly even foreknowledge. It's all pretty arbitrary.
His observations about community strike home as a personal tragedy affects his life, and he's forced to depend on the care of others. As he later notes, the privilege of community is that, in such times, he can entrust the situation to long-time friends, and not to strangers. That sums it up nicely.
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