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By Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn
This is one of those accounts, like Philip Gourevitch's "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families", that you really don't look forward to reading.
(Not to equate 9/11 with the Rwandan genocide.)
You already know the horrifying outcome, and it is difficult to even think of the event in abstract terms. To focus in on actual first hand accounts of actual people (some who made it, most who didn't)with jobs and families and desks and routines inside those towers, is almost too much to bear. Dwyer and Flynn have constructed an amazing narrative from countless personal anecdotes, voice mail messages, cell phone conversations, emergency communications, emails, instant messages, text messages, etc., that tells of the first hand struggles of coming to terms, and dealing with, the horror and the enormity of what happened that Tuesday morning in September.
This insight, many might argue, is exploitative and disrespectful. However, Dwyer and Flynn, both veteran reporters for The New York Times, never sensationalize these accounts. Instead, they bring honor to so many of the people that have remeained faceless, nameless to those of us who viewed the event from the distance of our living rooms.
There are the anecdotes of people risking or giving their lives to save another, and amazing anecdotes of survival, and as we all know, too many anecdotes of efforts that could not overcome the enormity of the situation. Most importantly, the authors uncover the history of building codes in NYC, and are not afraid to point fingers at the politics (from the building and fireproofing of the towers, to the lack of post-1993 emergency procedures and communication ugrades) that may have resulted in far more deaths than were necessary.
This is an important and fascinating account. |
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