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Falling Man

A Novel

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 Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people.

There is September 11 and then there are the days after—and the years.

Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people. First there is Keith, walking out of the rubble into a life that he’d always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes. These are lives choreographed by loss, grief, and the enormous force of history.

Brave and brilliant, Falling Man traces the way the events of September 11 have reconfigured our emotional landscape, our memory, and our perception of the world. It is cathartic, beautiful, and heartbreaking.©2007 Don DeLillo. All rights reserved; (P)2007 Simon and Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Classics Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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So where were you? Well, I was in New York ? but not Manhattan, thankfully ? and experienced the panic and terror of the planes in the air over our heads, and got stuck there until 18th September getting home via Detroit on one of the first transatlantic flights out to a family I couldn?t call. And I was there again on the night they turned out the searchlights that shone up into the night sky and saw them from the top of the Empire State building. And since that time, I?ve avoided it all?news, films, documentaries, conspiracy theories?until this. Not at all what I expected. DeLillo places the Towers on stage left and concentrates on games of poker, interpersonal relationships, the details and for a time you feel the comfortable distance pierced by the universal truths that are laid down one card at a time?.and then it all comes back to you. The towers are rebuilt and populated with characters we know, the planes are peopled with dreams, beliefs and ideologies and you watch it all crash in words. We were all there on that day ? better to understand than to know, focus on the consequences rather than the emotions. A important book, a thrilling read, Hemingway for the millennium, 'broadband realism' we?ll call it ? when studied will become a classic text.

A modern classic - get there before the critcs.

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No story whatsoever. Could not hold my attention at all. Avoid! Maybe means more to Americans. Not for me. Poor.

Yawn

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For a non-American this is an eye-opener into the impact of 9/11. It is a deeply moving account of post-traumatic adaptation, suffering, and cogitation. The central character continues to walk the wreckage of life in a way that steals your heart and mind. It makes you want to put your arms around the victims of calamity, but knowing that most of it is untouchable.

A moving meditation

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A difficult but rewarding novel narrated by an incredibly talented and underrated character actor. It captures the complexity of emotions of that terrible day in September 2001, imagining the attack from many angles. An important work and highly recommended.

STILL RELEVANT TODAY

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