The Fireman's Wife - Softcover

Susan Farren is a former paramedic who transitioned out of a full-time career to be a stay-at-home wife and mother of five. An inspirational speaker, she lives with her family in Northern California.

Farren shares with readers the pride, fear and resentment that make up her "abnormal" life next to her husband, Dan, engaged full-time in the Petaluma, Calif., fire department, 50 miles north of San Francisco. Unlike his Irish ancestors, on whom the dangerous, low-ladder jobs of policeman and fireman fell by default, Dan has craved the daily danger and heroism of fire fighting since childhood. Farren recounts Dan's initial acceptance as a recruit after a grueling series of trials and his eventual assimilation into a fiercely loyal brotherhood that would see him through the births of his five children and a devastating accident that nearly ended his active career. Farren ably takes readers through the stress of calls on her husband, ending either in a valiant "save" by the force or a depressing loss of life; she recalls the galvanizing effects of 9/11 in bringing the community of firefighters together. Moreover, she writes of her own career transition, from paramedic to full-time mom and "shivering ball of nerves" whose status as a fireman's wife did not exempt her from distractedly courting disaster or calling 911 when she heard a noise in the house. Although short on fire-fighting history and containing awkward shifts in POV to narrate the action, Farren's memoir proves an elucidating journey. (Mar.)
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