Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

“Trial by Fire’ by Scott James is being touted as the definitive master work on the Station Nightclub disaster. My first thought was why do we need yet another book on a subject that has already been so thoroughly researched and exhaustively written about. I was right, there is nothing new of any substance to be found here. I have a unique interest and perspective on this tragedy because I was a professional pyrotechnician in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s working with acts such as Kiss, Van Halen, Pink Floyd, and many others including Great White whose misuse of special effects started the fire. I have performed dozens of legal shows in Rhode Island and ironically a year before the fire I was teaching Pyro safety at Six Flags New England, a little over an hour’s drive from the Station. I am not only familiar with some of the major participants involved, but it has also been my privilege over the years to get to know some of the incredible survivors and brilliant researchers through my work focusing on concert safety. The hype around this new book claims it is written by an objective investigative journalist and would finally tell the whole truth by dispelling the previous half-truths and false statements made by a sensationalist driven media motivated more by ratings than accurately reporting the news. The book promises new, never before available information culled by conducting interviews with key sources that for fifteen years have not spoken publicly about the tragedy. At last “Trial by Fire” with tell the entire truth about what occurred that cold February night when a small Road Island roadhouse turned into an inferno of death. That sounds all well and good, if only any of the hype was true. Instead of providing any new information or insight, “Trial by Fire” is a thinly veiled white washing of the whole tragedy more concerned with resurrecting the reputation of certain individuals who directly contributed to the chain of events that culminated in so much pain and heartache than it is with providing accurate information or any insight what so ever. The so-called investigative journalist is in fact a friend and former colleague of Jeffery Derderian who, along with his brother Michael, co-owned the Station Nightclub at the time of the fire. Mr. James writes that he believes he is capable of being fair and impartial and was not influenced by his relationship with Mr. Derderian. If he really believes that to be true, how can a man incapable of being honest with himself ever be trusted to be honest with his readers? I attempted to approach this work with an open mind but Mr. James bizarre revisionist history is so agenda driven that it can’t be taken seriously as a piece of credible nonfiction writing. Early on the author describes the club’s attendance that night as “busy but not packed,” a gross understatement that is easily refuted by one look at the video footage of the incident or the high number of casualties representing those people who could not escape in time due to mass of humanity clogging the exits. This kind of shoddy reporting is typical in the book serving as foreshadowing for the author’s premise that Jeffery Derderian is a misunderstood and maligned innocent victim of circumstance. The author’s excuses for Jeffery’s actions fall into many categories including 1. Jeffery was not aware. 2. Nobody informed him. 3. Jeffery was given incorrect information by his staff and public officials. 4. Jeffery was only following his lawyer’s instructions. 5. Jeffery did not know something was against the law. 6. The law was confusing or poorly written. 7. Everybody else was doing it. 8. We are all human. And 9. Rhode Island is a cesspool of corruption where nobody in government can be trusted. These explanations for his actions are the same caliber excuse one would hear from children on a grade school playground. Lack of maturity and poor character are like ignorance of the law, they are no excuse. The narrative is unevenly paced until you realize the author is interspersing Jeffery’s personal history, where he is portrayed as a competent news professional and a loving family man, in with the backstories of the real victims of the fire in a not too subtle attempt to start the reader thinking about Jeffery as a victim himself, just a regular Joe that the fire was something that just happened to him as well as the others. That is not the only technique employed by the author to manipulate the readers perception. Derderian is often referred to as just “Jeffery” which is reminiscent of criminal lawyers when defending unpopular defendants will constantly refer to their clients in the familiar, using only their first name attempting to humanize the accused to a jury and a public that views them as a monster. To hear the book tell it, Jeffery’s actions that night were nothing less than heroic as he is described running about frantically saving as many people as possible. That is not the same story other people who were there tell. The only new information I could find was the interviews with Jeff Derderian and those are both suspect in accuracy and self-serving in substance. If a person wishes to really learn about the fire, there are already a number much better written books available. The story of severely injured survivor Gina Russo, who lost her fiancée, Fred Crisostomi, that night, is covered in “Trial by Fire” but her book “From the Ashes, Surviving the Station Nightclub Fire,” is so much more compelling in her own words. The same is true for injured survivor Michael Ricardi’s book “Just a Thought Away” as he shares about losing his best friend, Jim Vogel, and his long road to recovery. For an infinitely fairer, exhaustively researched, and all around better written account of the tragedy I highly recommend John Barrylick’s “Killer Show, America’s Deadliest Rock Concert.” I will never understand why people who get thrust into the public eye for some nefarious reason and wind up dodging a bullet and get away with a mere slap on the wrist, do not just thank their lucky stars and quietly fade away. Instead they do things like participate in exercises such as this book, hoping to regain their previous social status, but really only reminding people why they were disgraced in the first place. In a pitiful attempt to garner sympathy for the man whose responsibility it should have been to conduct a safe place for his customers and employees Jeffery is described as suffering from P.T.S.D. as well as survivor’s guilt, breaking down and sobbing, “why did I get out when others didn’t” The answer to that question is obvious. Jeffery, who was aware of the fire from its ignition and upon quickly realizing the seriousness of the matter, high tailed it out of there and was among the first to exit Jeffery Derderian’s story does not belong alongside the ones of the real heroes that night like bouncer Tracy King who remained in the burning club, pulling people to safety, until he succumbed to the heat and perished. This guy just worked at the Station part-time, it wasn’t even his bar. The Derderians, the actual bar owners, didn’t even carry legally required workman’s comp. insurance on their employees like Tracy. While a part time bouncer sacrificed everything for his fellow man, the actual person in charge unquestionably chose not to go down with his ship. If Jeffery had been captain of the Titanic, as soon as it struck the iceberg, he would have been found aboard one of the first lifeboats hidden amongst the women and children. In the final analysis this poorly written fairytale is insensitive and insulting to the memories of the dead, the injured, the traumatized, the many heart-broken friends and loved ones touched by this tragedy, the real heroes of the Station Fire, the good people of the city of West Wyrick, the citizens of the State of Rhode Island, professional journalists everywhere, and the intelligence of anyone who wasted their time reading this book.