What would make someone rush into a towering inferno and dash up stairs toward danger against a flow of human beings running in the opposite direction? Only someone who's been there can tell us.

In 1919, when Wesley Williams became a New York City firefighter, he stepped into a world that was 100% white and predominantly Irish. As far as this city knew, black men in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) tended horses. Nearly a century later, many things in the FDNY had changed-but not the scarcity of blacks. New York had about 300 black firefighters-roughly 3 percent of the 11,000 New York firefighters in a city of two million African Americans....

"Seen through the eyes of four generations of a firefighter family, Five Floors Up is on one level the story of the modern New York City Fire Department. From the days just after the horse-drawn firetruck, to the devastation of the 1970s when the Bronx was burning, to the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, to the culture-busting department of today, a Feehan has worn the shoulder patch of the FDNY. The tale especially shines the spotlight on the career...

Recently divorced fireman Tommy Gavin is coping with the fear of his job and the unease he feels watching his ex-wife as she starts to date other men.

"Memoirs of prominent New York City firefighter and author John Norman"--