"This mind and soul, her's and everyone's, keep dreaming toward something unreachable. Does this mean there's something there, at the limits of matter and energy, a force responsible in some way for the very nature, the vibrancy of our lives from the mind out, the mind in little pigeon blinks that extend the plane of being, out beyond logic and intuition."
Jacket Copy: Falling Man, Don DeLillo's magnificent, hauntin novel about September 11, begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the altered lives of a few New Yorkers. First there is Keith, a lawyer who walks out of the rubble and back into the world of his estranged wife, Lianne, and their young son, Justin. In the weeks and months after that day, Lianne probes Keith's moods, tries to reconcile two versions of her shadowy husband. Justin turns furtive, speaks in monosyllables and stands at the window, scanning the sky for more planes. These are lives choreographed by loss and grief, emotional landscapes reconfigured by the enormous force of history. DeLillo's love of New York--its pluck and verve, the history it carries, the sudden intimacies of strangers on its streets--makes Falling Man one of his most resonant novels, heartbreaking and beautiful.
Similar to: Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays
Highlights:
--The reason I compared this to Didion is for its spare but sharp prose. It's one of those short but sweet novels that says a lot in a very few words.
--The thing about this book is that I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it...it's an unpleasant book, so it's not something anything would really "enjoy" per se. But I feel like I know more about the world and about human nature from reading it, so in that sense, it's a great book.
--The use of the "Falling Man" performance artist as a metaphor for survivors of the 9/11 attacks was particularly genius. This is the image that will stick with me most from reading the book; it's what makes this book so haunting, long after you've finished reading it.
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