The Age of Daredevils

By: Michael Clarkson

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a small but determined band of barrel jumpers risked their lives in one of the world's most wondrous waterfalls. Only a few survived.

By turns a family drama and an action-adventure story, The Age of Daredevils chronicles the lives of the men and women who devoted themselves to the extraordinary sport of jumping over Niagara Falls in a barrel - a death-defying gamble that proved a powerful temptation to a hardy few.

Internationally known in the 1920s and '30s for their barrel-jumping exploits, the Hills were a father-son team of daredevils who also rescued dozens of misguided thrill seekers and accident victims who followed them into the river. The publicity surrounding the Hills' spectacular feats ushered in tourism, making Niagara Falls the nation's foremost honeymoon destination, but ultimately set Red Hill Jr. on a perilous path to surpass his father's extraordinary leaps into the void.

Like the works of Jon Krakauer and David McCullough, The Age of Daredevils explores the primal force of fear and the thirst for adventure that drive humans to the brink of death to see if they can somehow escape.

©2016 Michael Clarkson. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

great info

really good book for some history about the falls and the river men who lived off of the devastation.

interesting

loved the the history of the falls and what. conveyance that people used in their attempts to go over the falls in one piece and alive.

A by gone era

You feel as if you know the River Boys who risk their lives and the consequences that play on their families lives saving people who come into contact with Niagara Falls. William Red Hill will always be remembered as a great Man and the patriarch of the Daredevil's.

Fascinating

Who knew. Well I guess the people living near the falls knew. Met some really fascinating characters who were clearly born too soon. Could only wonder what their lives would be like today with cable and social media

Does it matter?

Mildly interesting at first but it dragged slowly to a non-ending. The stories of a bunch of dumb people risking their lives to go over the falls just doesn’t have any redeeming value.