After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I quickly found I couldn’t watch the personal stories. In those early days, as people searched for lost family members, in addition to the footage of the planes hitting, the towers burning and falling, the news aired interviews with loved ones, home videos and other stories that hit a little close to home. At the time of the attacks we lived 15 miles from NYC — I could see the smoke from the towers on my drive home that Tuesday evening — yet were lucky to have not lost anyone that day. We had a few close calls – a cousin who worked on the 2nd floor was at home that day, a friend who regularly went to the towers for meetings was out of town.
While the years since 9/11 have seen many books about the attacks, the 10 year anniversary saw a surge of memoirs by survivors and family members, and I still found myself unable to read them. However, many novels published in the last 10 years, especially those set in New York City, have at least a passing mention of that day. I’m not sure why it is that I can read fiction about the attacks — although I almost always find myself in tears at some point — but still won’t go near non-fiction. Probably for the same reason that 11 years later I don’t need to watch the towers fall. That footage is forever seared into my brain. I watched it live, I watched it repeated for days after, I watched it in movies. When I read about it happening, I don’t need to imagine what’s being described.
With the 11th anniversary passing recently, I’m hearing people say we need to stop look back with emotions and start looking at it as history, and see how we can learn from it. Look at it with a clear head, if you will. I guess once I can bring myself to read those memoirs, or read fiction about that day without crying, then I’ll be ready for that. Just not yet.
If you ever get to a point where you want to try a 9/11 based fiction book I would like to recommend mine, “Steps to Courage”. I was sitting in a classroom with sixth graders on that day. Our principal made us leave the TV’s on all day. The kids started talking about what they would do if they were in the Towers. Then they wanted to know if there were kids or teens in the towers. That is how the story came about. I placed 3 teens in the Towers on that fateful day as they were going about fulfilling community service hours. I know how painful that day is. My sister’s former roommate lost her life in Tower 1 that day.
I read Lisa Beamer’s Let’s Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage shortly after it happened, but I haven’t read any other nonfiction.
I, too, have noticed that fiction set during that time in NYC frequently uses it as a dramatic device. I should be expecting it, but it sneaks up on me every time!
I haven’t yet been able to watch any of the movies made or read any of the memoirs…and at times, I find it annoys me when it sneaks up on me in fiction set in NYC.
I live outside of NYC now, and have heard story upon story of the experiences of those working in NYC that day. Maybe in 10 more years I’ll have enough distance to consider it a moment in history…but I am not there yet.