“This is an important, exciting, and extremely well-done narrative.”

- Dennis Smith, author of Report from Engine Co. 82,
A Song for Mary and Report from Ground Zero

“In Saving Troy, William Patrick brings a dazzling array of literary skills to this chronicle of a year in the life of Troy firefighters. Widely acclaimed as a poet, Patrick proves himself to be a formidable immersion journalist in this taut and compelling urban action story. Making this journey was Patrick’s way of facing some personal demons and readers will be forced to confront their own notions about the nature of courage and heroes. Saving Troy is that rare find, a book that touches your heart and challenges your mind, filled with flesh-and-blood characters who will stick with you long after you’ve turned the last page.”

-Paul Grondahl, Albany /Times Union/ staff writer and author of
I Rose like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt

“I enjoyed Saving Troy immensely. Patrick does a great job capturing the feel of the job and the denizens of the firehouse kitchens. I retired from FDNY and there are many of the same characters working in Troy that I worked alongside of in Harlem in the late 60s and early 70s. And when you come right down to it, it is all about the firefighters and how they feel about themselves, their ‘brothers,’ and the people they serve. To me, that is the joy of this book.”

-Dick Nagle, Director, NY State Fire Academy

“Bill Patrick does a wonderful job of conveying the duties, joys and heartbreak associated with EMS workers in the field.”

-Gary Favro, professional firefighter and paramedic for 30 years, and former President of Troy Uniformed Firefighters Association, Local 86

“Saving Troy overflows with stories that are not only true but are alive in the telling, as vivid to us as they were when they happened. Whether bearing witness to the stabbing of an off-duty firefighter moonlighting in a liquor store, the frenzied attempt to resuscitate a frozen man, or the heart-stopping race to secure a runaway river barge, Saving Troy recounts the action with a gut-wrenching immediacy that will excite readers’ imaginations and open them up to a greater appreciation of the hazards, challenges, and dangers faced by firefighters and paramedics.”

“In Saving Troy, William B. Patrick combines a poet’s sense of the language with a dramatist’s ear for peoples’ voices and an urban journalist’s gritty street smarts to bring us a powerful examination of life in a post-industrial American city. In these pages you will meet the men of the 1st Platoon at Central Station of the Troy Fire Department, in Troy, New York — truly a brotherhood of courage and compassion. You will come to know each of them for the complex, resilient, and committed man he is, and you will learn what it takes, and what it means, to serve the people of your community, again and again, at those moments when life and death hang in the balance.”
“But Saving Troy, as heart-pounding and adrenalized as it is, is not about accidents and fires, stabbings and shootings and suicides: It is about people. In its untiring wonder at the wide array of humanity, seen through the eyes of the 1st Platoon, Saving Troy is a book about how we live now, about what we value, about how we understand ourselves, and about how we treat one another. Along the way, Patrick, himself a son of Troy, composes a kind of hymn to his native city — an appreciative, clear-eyed appraisal of its history and fortunes — offering us a lens through which we can look at any number of similar American cities struggling with changing economic times.”

“William B. Patrick understands duty, its sacred call, its paramount claim on those who use their skills in the service of others, and here he has carried out his own duty as a writer — to honor the best in us by recording in the most vivid terms the deeds of these flesh and blood heroes — with a skill and integrity that is unsurpassed in the literature of firefighting.”

“After reading Saving Troy, you will never feel the same way when you hear a siren or pass a firehouse. You’ve been inside, up close, and now you know. This is a book that will thrill you, that will make you laugh one moment and cry the next, that will force you to think. Saving Troy will open your eyes and your heart to the bravery, kindness, integrity, and self-sacrifice on which we all may one day depend for our very lives.”

-Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House

“It’s an excellent book. It’s my job to protect the image of the Troy Fire Department, and this book is a completely realistic look at the workings inside that department at the time.”

-Tom Garrett, Current Chief, Troy Fire Department

“This story crackles, it positively tingles with immediacy. You are there with Troy’s firefighters doing what they do three quarters of the time, racing to save the bleeding, the burned, the overdosed, the drowning, the poisoned and the delivering mother. And, for the other quarter, they lay their lives on the line within flaming buildings, performing the most dangerous profession in America, the firefighter.”

-Joseph Persico, author of 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour: Armistice Day, 1918

“This is simply the BEST work detailing the responsibilities of modern Fire Departments, PERIOD. For those simple minds who think that Firefighters only sit around playing cards until the next fire happens, think again. I know I’m not brave or courageous enough to perform this job. William Patrick’s superb narrative has you at and inside these scenes of remarkable, real acts of heroism.”

-John Capano, Albany, NY, January 10, 2006

“I just finished reading Saving Troy, and just wanted to drop a note and say what a great book it was. As a full time firefighter/EMT in a city a little larger than Troy, this book hit home. I could switch the names and places and it would be our department and city. It amazed me, the more I read, that the turmoil and everyday problems parallel those of most mid-sized cities in America. I had a hard time putting this book down. I hope Bill Patrick goes back to Troy in the future and does a follow-up story. Kudos to him on an excellent book, and to the Troy FD for allowing Bill into their everyday lives to tell this story. Thanks again for a great book!”

-Drew Spielman, Green Bay, WI, February 25, 2006

“Saving Troy is a no-nonsense account of what it’s like to be a firefighter in a real-world, middle-class American city. Unlike television shows, where most calls end in a happy resolution, many of the calls in this book don’t. Patrick puts the reader in the fire truck as it races to the emergency. Readers will see parts of Troy they’ve never encountered: broken-down apartment buildings; houses where young children are burned alive; and numerous drug addicts and grieving people. Despite this turmoil, the book shows the compassion and professionalism of these firefighters.”

-Jack Rightmyer, The Sunday Gazette, 1/22/06

“The essence of Saving Troy is a catalogue of conflicts: older firefighters vs. younger firefighters; life vs. death; EMS duties vs. firefighting duties; humor vs. despair; man vs. the elements; fear vs. bravery. Chapters about Troy’s 1st Platoon’s fire and rescue operations anchor the book, as Patrick shows the drama of the firefighters’ daily grind. It is a 9 to 5 like no other.”

“But some chapters are personal accounts: the narratives in the firefighters’ voices read like stream of consciousness – as if all at once an individual must confess what is at his core. Some of these confessionals are accounts of fires never fully bested. Others are recitations of formative experiences. One, related to the author late at night, is that of Captain Terry Fox, who was a crew chief on a helicopter during the Vietnam War. Fox relays a harrowing tale of plucking a reconnaissance team from the jungle. His account is a parable that goes a long way toward explaining the motives that flow through these firefighters’veins.”

-Nathaniel Brooks, The Independent, 1/13/06

“Mr. Patrick’s book reveals the concept that those of us in the services usually hide behind a mask while facing tasks that many others will never have to face. Many of the current and past efforts of TV and movies have tried to show the glory side — the side that shows everything working out to the betterment of all. Unfortunately, they also have done a great disservice to the people who are doing the job. They depict the people involved as being able to disregard the human side of themselves and ignore anything that would injure or destroy that part of each of us.”

“Mr. Patrick, on the other hand, has attempted and succeeded to look through our eyes at the reality that will never make the movies: the pain and anguish of losing a fellow member; of attempting to console those left behind when a loved one passes on; the outright self deprecation each of us faces when we feel that we should have done more, when in fact we had already done everything possible.”

“Patrick shows the sleepless nights and the many small ways that grief and pain get dealt with inside the firehouse. As a Firefighter/EMT myself, I highly recommend Saving Troy. It is a great book. However, I do caution you to keep some tissues handy.”

-Steve Williams, Firefighter/EMT, Van Hornesville, NY, March 1, 2006

“I put this work right up there with Report from Engine Company 82. Great read!”

-John C. Smiley, West Chester, PA, May 30, 2006

Interview with William B. Patrick on the Making of Saving Troy

The following Q & A resulted from correspondence that occurred in May and June of 2006 between William B. Patrick, author of Saving Troy, and interviewer Fred Balzac, a freelance writer based in Jay, NY. The Q & A formed the basis of a two-part article Balzac wrote and published in the Lake Champlain Weekly (Plattsburgh, NY) August 2nd and 9th, 2006, and is reprinted here with permission of both participants (copyright © William B. Patrick and Fred Balzac):
Q: You’re an established poet and prose fiction writer who has also written (and seen produced) several screenplays and at least one play, among many other highly lauded professional achievements. What was the original impetus for “Saving Troy,” which is essentially a work of journalism? What compelled you to, at the project’s most basic level, ride around in fire trucks and other emergency vehicles and go on to tell the story of these heroic community servants and the oftentimes bizarre people and situations they encounter?

William B. Patrick: I was teaching in a college Creative Writing Department in Virginia and, essentially, I had grown tired of the job. One day, I was sitting in my office, staring out the window at a parking lot full of students coming and going, and I thought, If I could do anything at all, what would it be?
. . . I’d ride on a rescue truck for a year and write about what I experienced. That was the original impetus for the book – simply what I thought was an interesting idea for a non-fiction book. What I wasn’t allowing myself to remember, I guess, was an accident I had been part of many years before, working on a horse farm where a man was killed, and feeling somewhat responsible for not being able to save him. Volunteer EMTs and a paramedic had come to help that day, and I had ridden with them (watching them perform CPR on my friend in the back of the ambulance) to the hospital. The trauma of that incident may have been the real reason I wanted to do the book, and the final chapter of Saving Troy explores the accident and its ramifications in depth. But when it comes to the mysterious ways that ideas and projects originate, who really knows?

Q: How did you make the project happen in practical terms—e.g., gaining access to firehouses, going on calls, etc? How were you regarded by the firefighters and paramedics at the outset and how did the relationship change over time? You seem to have won their trust and confidence as related rather early in the book.
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