I'm a firefighter, God, so I know I've been in some tough places before. But this . . . this not knowing the people I love . . . this is the hardest thing I can imagine. The last thing Jake Bryan knew was the roar of the World Trade Center collapsing on top of him and his fellow firefighters. The man in the hospital bed remembers nothing. Not rushing with his teammates up the stairway of the south tower to help trapped victims. Not being blasted from...

There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally 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,...

"It's 2 AM on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001, and twenty-eight-year old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar on New York's Lower East Side, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she'll ever make it as a reporter in the big city--and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend Matthew. As Cecily reaches for the phone to call him, she hears a guy on the barstool...

Pam, Daniel, and Joe might be the worst punk band on the Lower East Side. Struggling to scrape together enough cash and musical talent to make it, they are waylaid by surprising arrivals, a daughter for Pam and Daniel; a solo hit single for Joe. As the '90s wane, the three friends share in one another's successes, working together to elevate Joe's superstardom and raise baby Flora. On September 11, 2001, the city's unfathomable devastation coincided...

"When Lucas decides to skip school because he wants to discuss football with a firefighter friend of his father, he finds himself caught up in the terrorist attacks on New York City."