‘Hotshot: A Life on Fire’ By River Selby c.2025, Atlantic Monthly Press $27/326 pages

How you doing?

Everything good? You need anything, something to drink, a plate of food, a hug, just say the word. If you’re here, you should at least be happy about it. As in the new book “Hotshot” by River Selby, there’s a problem if something’s wrong.

River Selby never set out to be a hotshot firefighter.

They never set out to do anything, in fact, but to stay alive while doing drugs, selling sex for food and money, working as a stripper and a waitress, and living for a time with a man under a bridge. It wasn’t the life they imagined when they became a runaway as a tweenager. Fighting fires was never on the radar until too many losses and an “unraveled” life, bulimia, and a series of fast-food jobs

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