Description
Book SynopsisNew York is a city of writers. And when the city was attacked on 9/11, its writers began to do what writers do, they began to look and feel and think and write. This book gathers a multi-hued range of voices that convey, with immediacy and imagination, the shock and loss suffered in September.
Trade Review"The works collected here capture both the diversity of the people of New York and how surreal the catastrophe felt for those close to Ground Zero. A touching and memorable collection." -- Carlos Orellana * Booklist, September, 2002 *
"The best of these pieces by novelists and poets write about it the way that all great writing happensthey come at it sideways, or with complete indirection, sometimes in metaphor, and write about love, selfishness, lust, dieting, the lives of the rain, and in one case, from the perspective of a rat in the sewer below the towers." * Clean Sheets *
"The wide range of writing styles and viewpoints, as well as Art Spiegelman's striking cover art, make this anthology a popular read." * Library Journal *
"110 Stories, with an arresting cover image by Art Speigelman, presents a fractured view of last year's events...What we're left with is the way the tragedy fits into individual lives, the impression it makes on impressionable, expressive people." * Newsday *
"A decent 9/11 novel may be far off, but the best first passes at essays, fiction, and poetry are finally in one place." * New York Metro.Com *
"A smart idea...[drawing from] the incredible talent pool of New York City writers to consecrate the attack on the World Trade Center." * Kirkus Reviews *
"Short-short stories and poems by New York writers are the collection's raison d'Etre, but personal testimony creeps in as well. The best entries approach the subject most obliquely or humorouslyJonathan Ames's Nabokovian 'Womb Shelter,' David Hollander's moving 'The Price of Light and Air,' Nathalie Handal's lovely 'The Lives of Rain,' Lev Grossman's hilarious 'Pitching September 11,' among many others...Overall, this collection proves the transformative power of art" * Publisher's Weekly *
"Ulrich Baer has gathered a multi-hued range of voices that convey, with vivid immediacy and heightened imagination, the shock and loss suffered in September." * The Harvard Bookstore *
"The result is this excellent collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry written in reaction to the tragedy by a stellar list of contributors." * The Kansas City Star *
Table of ContentsCONTENTS 1 HUMERA AFRIDI Circumference 10 2 AMMIEL ALCALAY night of unity 13 3 ELENA ALEXANDER Circum 19 4 MEENA ALEXANDER Aftermath; Invisible City 21 5 JEFFERY RENARD ALLEN It Shall Be Again 23 6 ROBERTA ALLEN The Sky Was So Blue 26 7 JONATHAN AMES Womb Shelter 28 8 DARREN ARONOFSKY A First Kiss 32 9 PAUL AUSTER Random Notes;September 11, 2001, 4:00 p.m.; Underground 34 10 JENNIFER BELLE Gelato Is Gelato 37 11 JENIFER BERMAN Prologue: The Book of John 40 12 CHARLES BERNSTEIN Report from Liberty Street 42 13 STAR BLACK Perfect Weather 47 14 BREYTEN BREYTENBACH New York, 12 September 2001 49 15 MELVIN JULES BUKIET from Manhattan Rhapsody 51 16 PETER CAREY Union Square 54 17 LAWRENCE CHUA The Quick and the Poor 57 18 IRA COHEN Holy Smoke 60 19 IMRAAN COOVADIA The Same Tune 62 20 EDWIDGE DANTICAT on the day of the dead 64 21 ALICE ELLIOT DARK Senseless 65 22 ERIC DARTON The Therm 68 23 LYDIA DAVIS Grammar Questions 72
