For quite a while after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it seemed as if the most substantial artistic response – the one that encompassed the passion, fear, uncertainty and horror of all those involved – would be an album (“The Rising”) by rock icon Bruce Springsteen.
Then words slowly began to trickle out of those in the writing community. And although he rightfully argues it isn’t so, Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was marketed as the first novel to take on the Sept. 11 tragedies. Others took a whack, including Jay McInerney (“The Good Life”), but their efforts fell short. Lucius Shepard, who wrote “Only Partly Here,” one of the finest short stories thus far to take on the subject, mused at that “there’ll be at least one major 9/11 novel.”
Since that proclamation, there have been two novels vying for the position: Last year it was “Terrorist,” by John Updike. It didn’t deal directly with the event, but it did try to deal with the mind-set of a true believer in the Islamic faith and how such a person becomes a terrorist. Now, comes the latest from Don DeLillo: “Falling Man,” a novel that succeeds in both examining the horror of that sickening assault and the fear and uncertainty of those who survived, and in its attempt to gain an understanding of those who staged the attack.
“Falling Man” opens as Keith Neudecker shambles out of the dust and debris, falling clothes, and paper kicked up when the towers crumbled to the ground. Having narrowly escaped death in one of the towers, almost absentmindedly he makes his way back to Lianne, the wife from whom he has been separated. Believing he’s been given a second chance, the two try to reconcile. Their stilted efforts are almost too painful to read about, and Keith’s relationship with his son, Justin, doesn’t fare much better. Having picked up someone else’s briefcase in the midst of the 9/11 calamity, Keith contacts the person, searching for a connection. He finds that connection via an affair.
But it isn’t just Keith and the other survivors who are damaged; Lianne and Justin suffer their own nightmares. Lianne is hateful and distrusting of anyone and anything that smacks of the Middle East; Justin, having misunderstood the name, uses his binoculars to keep a watchful eye out for airborne terrorists sent by “Bill Lawton.”
DeLillo digs deeper and stretches further than that, though, giving readers a character who was so affected by the sight of a man who jumped out of the towers that he becomes a performance artist who leaps off bridges and other tall objects, a way, perhaps, to express his own horror and grief at what he has seen.
DeLillo also lets readers briefly share the inner thoughts of one of the hijackers – before the event and near the end – when the novel comes full circle and recounts the events that lead up to Keith’s narrow escape.
There are no pat answers awaiting the reader in “Falling Man.” Like the finest artists, DeLillo establishes enigmas and hands them over to an audience to provoke thoughtful reactions. And while no easy answers will be found, DeLillo does supply readers with plenty of pathos and insight into the human condition.
Unlike quite a bit of DeLilllo’s fiction, “Falling Man” contains much more off-the-wall humor and perhaps a softer tone in the narrative voice (which might be needed, given the subject matter). What’s more, it isn’t quite the 8-pound, unreadable tome that Lucius Shepard predicted might be born of the event. It is just the opposite, in fact, and it’s safe to say that DeLillo has, indeed, written the first major 9/11 novel.
Of course, like the rest of his oeuvre, it’s more than that. It’s a document of America’s progress as a nation, a civilization, at this particular place in time. And, exactly like the very best of DeLillo’s work – “White Noise,” “Libra” and “Underworld” – “Falling Man” stands as a literary milestone. It’s a well-crafted, artistic interpretation of a major event that has, for better or worse, helped shape the nation that has become his muse.
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelancer from Missouri.
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FICTION
Falling Man
Don DeLillo
$26
