What is the author's style in Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith?

Smith writes the story from his viewpoint. He is a strong, tough experienced firefighter who serves a community that is poverty stricken and populated with minorities. Perhaps it is his youth that keeps some cynicism at bay. Although he has been hit with stones thrown by kids as he rushes to saves lives and property, he has empathy for the poor people of the South Bronx. Much of his understanding of these people no doubt stems from Dennis Smith's own experiences as a kid who lived in a fourth floor apartment of a New York City tenement. He understands the kids who run the streets with no supervision and limited attention from parents.

The present day story of Smith and his firefighting peers is intermingled with splashes of his past. As a young boy he lived in a roach-infested tenement with his mother and brother when the community consisted largely of Irish immigrants. Now those same roach-infested tenements are inhabited by Puerto Ricans and blacks. Dennis Smith, having lived in poverty, shows a strong empathy for the poor people and awful conditions in which they are forced to live.