Firehouse is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time. Through the kind of intimate portraits that are Halberstam's trademark, we watch a typical day in a firehouse unfold -- the men called to duty, while their families wait anxiously for news of them. In addition, we come to understand the culture of the firehouse itself; why gifted men do this and why in so many instances they are eager to follow in their father's footsteps and serve in so dangerous a profession -- why, more than anything else, it is not just a job, but a calling as well. This is journalism-as-history at its best, the story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day. "In the firehouse, the men not only live and eat with each other, they play sports together, go off to drink together, help repair one another's houses, and, most important, share terrifying risks; their loyalties to each other must, by the demands of the dangers they face, be instinctive and absolute."