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Falling Man

by Don DeLillo

3.12 · rating details · 4,039 ratings · 722 reviews

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

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published June 3rd 2008 by Scribner (first published 2007)

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Jun 15, 2007

Jason Weeks rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: No One

Shelves: reviewed

I read DeLillo’s White Noise two years ago, didn’t like it, and decided to give him another chance with Falling Man. His writing didn’t develop much. I I still don’t like it.

Falling Man tackles 9/11 head-on, opening with 39 year old businessman Keith walking bruised and bloody out of the ash of ground zero. He attempts to repair his marriage to Liann and his relationship with his son. All three struggle to put their lives back together after the attacks. Within this story are chapter...moreI read DeLillo’s White Noise two years ago, didn’t like it, and decided to give him another chance with Falling Man. His writing didn’t develop much. I I still don’t like it.

Falling Man tackles 9/11 head-on, opening with 39 year old businessman Keith walking bruised and bloody out of the ash of ground zero. He attempts to repair his marriage to Liann and his relationship with his son. All three struggle to put their lives back together after the attacks. Within this story are chapters with terrorists as protagonists, and chapters involving a performance artist named Falling Man.

Despite the potential in the subject, DeLillo doesn’t deliver. He suffers the worst post-modernist failings, and has written a novel that is occasionally good, mostly dull, and at best, inconsistent.

His characters are ordinary to the point of caricature; there’s no reason to like them, or to dislike them. I really have no feelings for them at all. The setting is spare and lacking in richness and detail. For obvious reasons the novel is set in New York City, but you wouldn’t know it. There’s no feel for place, no sense of locale, no unique or particular qualities that say New York. Central Park and Manhattan could be any inner city; the crowds could be from Des Moines.

Even worse, DeLillo’s dialog is unbelievable, stiff, and at best, burdened by having to propel a hollow, directionless plot. I grew fed up with the repetition of stock dialog. Keith and Liann frequently make statements qualified with “you understand this;” reading it over and over again felt like DeLillo was trying to force something on me. It also makes each character sound identical. The phrase reaches an apogee of farce when Liann’s son, who is not yet ten, blames his father for taking a pen. Liann hands him a pencil, and preaches the respectability of the pencil for being made of earthly components such as wood and graphite. She tells her son “We respect this.”

My response to this exchange can only be “what in the hell are you talking about?”

I had the same response in the chapters told from the terrorist’s point of view and those with Falling Man. They add nothing to the plot, or even to our understanding of terrorism or how people cope with trauma (without explanation, Falling Man throws himself off buildings, catching himself with a rope and harness; I could be generous and say that his actions and Liann’s reactions allow a slightly better understanding of Liann’s character).

Anthony Burgess once complained that the American publisher of A Clockwork Orange, in choosing to excise the pivotal last chapter, gutted the book by eliminating one of the requirements of a novel: that characters demonstrate growth and change over the course of the narrative. DeLillo fails to develop characters and thus fails the reader as well. A novel about 9/11 should provide more, especially a novel written by someone with DeLillo’s skill; craft is no substitute for lack of emotional sustain.

Perhaps that’s what Falling Man is actually about: our collective response to traumatic events such as 9/11. Most Americans reacted initially, but then we absorbed, internalized, and packed away the shock, and got on with our day-to-day lives. That may be a gross generalization, but even in Portland, OR, bastion of progressives, liberals, and peaceniks, we grew apathetic. We assimilated the trauma, and moved on, just as the nation moved on to war, a stumbling economy, a belligerent government and reductions in civil liberties. We all had jobs to go to or classes to attend. Life continued, just a little differently – and I don’t need DeLillo to tell me that. I’d hoped for more, for something new.

We can all say where we were on 9/11, but we can’t necessarily say were we are now. How we relate to 9/11 is also how we relate to books like Falling Man – our interest is held for only so long. There is only so much time in our lives, and we m(less)

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Aug 16, 2007

Peter added it · review of another edition

Don DeLillo's novel Falling Man has more unspecified pronouns than I care to read.

It's written in that postmodern style that calls for rapidly changing vignettes; the reader bounces from one scene to another to another in just four pages, and as if to drive us mad, DeLillo hardly ever tells us who is speaking or acting. The sections begin with sentences like: "He missed the kid" or "She missed those nights with friends when you talk about everything." We're le...more

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May 31, 2007

Johnathan rated it

· review of another edition

Did Don get hit by a cheese truck? What a disappointment! This novel is impressively bad. UNDERWORLD and LIBRA are two of my all-time favorite books, but I barely made it through FALLING MAN. In fact, with ten pages left, I considered putting it down. DeLillo offers little new insight into an already exhausted topic. The characters are flaccid; there's little to no plot; DeLillo neglects his usual ingenious details and fills the novel instead with vague suggestions at what his generally listless...more

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May 29, 2010

K.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2010 edition)

Shelves: 1001-non-core

You pick up a book. You read the blurbs. Those in front, at the back and perhaps those in the first few pages. Then you form an impression. Maybe this book is good. Maybe this is about this and about that. Then you pay for the book and start reading at home.

We all know about The Falling Man. On September 11, 2001, a man was photograph falling, or some people say flying, from the north tower. He appeared to have, in his last instants of life, embraced his fate. He departed from this e...more

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Sep 27, 2007

Bart rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Readers who find value in postmodern writing

Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.

Falling Man, a sparse work that is better than The Body Artist and much much better than Cosmopolis, does about as much as it can hope to do. Don DeLillo's powers simply aren't up to the task of making a new statement about a national tragedy like 9/11. He is an assembler of words and sentences and paragraphs and - at times - chapters, but he is not a thinker. What, then, has made him considered such an important voice in American letters? ...more

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Oct 12, 2008

Julia rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: someone who enjoys different or difficult styles of writing, not for those upset by 9/11 depictions

Recommended to Julia by: book club

Although I understood that the writing style was fractured to reflect the fractured lives of the characters, I found the style annoying and frustrating. Though the topic was interesting, the author would switch from character to character and it was hard to figure out what was going on. In the beginning I would keep going back and looking for clues in the text so I could figure out which character's story I was on, but it became so annoying that I gave up and just would read, not always knowin...more

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Jun 17, 2008

Cameron rated it

· review of another edition

Unnecessary 9-11 book. Here's my review from the Greenwich Time last year:

Review of “Falling Man” by Don DeLillo, published May 20, 2007
On 9/11, more than 200 people reportedly jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center buildings, and this after facing an unfathomable choice: Remain in the building and die from the fire; or jump out the window and die from the fall.
On 9/12, newspapers worldwide carried an Associated Press photograph of a man in a white shirt and b...more

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Sep 26, 2007

Ben rated it

· review of another edition

The thing with DeLillo is the what. The conversations. The sentence fragments. The writing style.

Of any list of candidates to write about the horrors of 9/11, DeLillo must have shown up. Underworld of course has the famous photo of the towers by Andre Kertesz. (Falling Man has another photo on its cover by Katie Day Weisberger. It is taken from the sky, where one sees a cyclopean vista of clouds but for the two towers peeking out, dwarfed. It's as breathtaking and emotive as the firs...more

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Mar 16, 2008

Matt Gordon rated it

· review of another edition

Read it on a trip to SF for work, mostly on the plane. Found parts of it moving, but short of DeLillo's best. As usual, amazed by his dialogue -- it reads to me like real conversations would.

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Mar 18, 2011

Sharon rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: family, mystery, suspense-thriller, boring

A Good 9/11 Story

I read Falling Man after my co-worker and dear friend had finished reading it. Together, like so many other Americans we had our eyes and attention glued to the TV (in our case it was located in the employee lounge) that horrible day on Sept. 11th. So, back when this book was released and I found out that the author used 9/11 as a backdrop I could hardly wait till she passed the book on to me. In my opinion, I thought Don Delillo created an excellent story that gav...more

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Sep 14, 2011

Emir rated it

· review of another edition

Ten years ago, on September 12, I was one of the millions of people who were shocked by the news of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for which I was a Southern-Luzon bureau-based correspondent then, carried the images of the burning Twin Towers of the World Trade Center along with report about the series of attacks. The shock registered upon seeing the images along with the headline, in bold all-caps, superimposed on one of the images: TERRORIS...moreTen years ago, on September 12, I was one of the millions of people who were shocked by the news of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for which I was a Southern-Luzon bureau-based correspondent then, carried the images of the burning Twin Towers of the World Trade Center along with report about the series of attacks. The shock registered upon seeing the images along with the headline, in bold all-caps, superimposed on one of the images: TERRORISTS HIT U.S.

The attacks, stilled in images and the words, form an incongruous connection to the reality we were used to. The world is never the same after 9/11.

In Falling Man, published on May 15 2007, author Don DeLillo touches on the incongruous 'new world' through yet another image, the Falling Man, based on a photograph by Richard Drew for the Associated Press, another powerful image of 9/11.

The novel opens on the same fateful day of the terror attacks with one main character, Keith Neudecker, as a survivor, and follows through the days after as he reunites with his son Justin and estranged wife Lianne. DeLillo examines the lives of his characters, main and minor ones, victims and terrorists, and weaves them in 9/11, a bizarre frame date like burning Twin Towers. As the novel's title suggests, imagery is paramount and they come in vivid, raw, painful forms:

"The bomber is blown to bits, literally bits and pieces, and fragments of flesh and bone come flying outward with such force and velocity that they get wedged, they get trapped in the body of anyone who's in striking range. Do you believe it? A student is sitting in a cafe. She survives the attack. Then, months later, they find these little, like, pellets of flesh, human flesh that got driven into the skin. They call this organic shrapnel."

Organic shrapnel. This is what the novel's characters carry within themselves; this is what the survivors and the family of victims carry within themselves; this is what the world will carry ten years, more, many, many years after the terror attacks.

In the novel, the Falling Man is a performance artist who appears "unannounced, in various parts of the city, suspended from one or another structure, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress shoes. He brought it back, of course, those stark moments in the burning towers when people fell or were forced to jump."

Along with the images of 9/11, DeLillo's Falling Man is a bid to memory, to awareness.
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Sep 20, 2008

Paul rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

When this book was first published in May last year, the arts editor of The Stranger, Seattle's premiere hipster weekly, said I could write a few hundred words on it (along with, incidentally, a full review of Only Revolutions). Meantime dude got promoted to Editor, ate my two reviews, and never got back to me. Thanks, dude. So, having another opportunity to review a book, I decided to re-read this one, since I had conflicting thoughts. Second read, same as the first, and here's my new review:
...more

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Apr 05, 2008

Rossrn Nunamaker rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Don DeLillo's "Falling Man" is a book about a man who 'survives' the attack on the World Trade Center.

Keith had been estranged from his wife and son, but after the attack and his descent from the tower, he finds himself at the door of his wife's home and slowly they come back together in their own way.

The book ends on the day it begins with years passing in between.

During that time the reader is given a glimpse into a variety of perspectives on the event f...more

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May 06, 2008

Deirdre rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub

This book was disappointing (for a DeLillo novel.) I became a fan of DeLillo after reading "White Noise" as an undergrad and picking up "Underworld" and "Mao II." Ironically, I began reading "Mao II" during the first week of September of 2001. DeLillo's words haunted me as we all watched the tragedy of 9.11 unfold. Like many others here, I found "Falling Man" forced. At times during "Falling Man," I appreciated the quiet prose I found m...more

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Sep 26, 2007

tim rated it

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In some ways, DeLillo seemed the perfect candidate to write a novel about 9/11. In White Noise there was the idea of terrorists flying a hijacked passenger jet into the White House. In Underworld, the construction of the twin towers lumed large in the background for a good part of the book. The cover photo itself focuses on the twin towers rising into clouds (smoke?), with a bird (a plane?) flying close by. It may be a stretch to read a connection with 9/11 into Underworld's cover (not to me...moreIn some ways, DeLillo seemed the perfect candidate to write a novel about 9/11. In White Noise there was the idea of terrorists flying a hijacked passenger jet into the White House. In Underworld, the construction of the twin towers lumed large in the background for a good part of the book. The cover photo itself focuses on the twin towers rising into clouds (smoke?), with a bird (a plane?) flying close by. It may be a stretch to read a connection with 9/11 into Underworld's cover (not to mention it has nothing to do with DeLillo's writing), but it was hard not to imagine these connections while in the middle of reading Underworld when 9/11/01 happened. Moreover, many aspects of DeLillo's writing deal with major world-changing events such as 9/11. How drastically the world changed after JFK's assassination is a topic that threads through several of his books (most magnificently in Libra).

And so maybe not unsurprisingly, immediately following 9/11 DeLillo was accosted by people who thought, for some reason, he would have answers to why 9/11 happened. He responded by writing Cosmopolis, a book which passed over the topic of 9/11 altogether and instead tells the story of a billionare stock market genius engaged in the intentional sabotage of his personal assets as well as those of his clients--all of which occurs over the course of one day in the year 2000 (how quickly everything can change in a day). It is a story of our own undoing from the inside, as opposed to our undoing by outsiders (bringing into question our role as the unprovoked victims of foreign terrorism).

Letting a few more years pass, DeLillo finally took on what many thought he eventually would, despite high expectations difficult for anyone to live up to.

To be fair, I didn't want to give in to these expectations. I wanted and tried to read Falling Man because it is DeLillo, not because it's a novel about 9/11. Yet after reading Falling Man, I felt something missing in the fragments of the super-charged dialog, vivid settings, and empty characters tossing about in my head--because like the sooty, scattered tons of paper from the fallen World Trade Center, DeLillo's fictional fragments were nearly devoid of emotion. This may very well have been DeLillo's intention, however, that the reader walk away just as vacant and lost as the shells of his characters living on after 9/11.

For me, the incredible dialog DeLillo often creates as well as the way he writes about art and history are reasons enough to read any of his books. Yet these reasons will not be enough for everyone. Ultimately, if you feel compelled to read Falling Man--whether because it is a book by DeLillo, or simply because it is about 9/11--you should. Although, I will recommend that it not be the only book you read written by DeLillo. (less)

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Mar 20, 2009

Kristiana rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: at-work

This is the best book I've read all year and I hope it stays that way for awhile. It's about sept 11th, but it's DeLillo so it doesn't seem like he's taking advantage of the past to further his literary career. He's an amazing story teller and Falling Man was unbelievable. I read a lot of crap and I sometimes forget how good literature can be. The writing is flawless and at times poetic and the story is not compelled by a plot, it's driven by its characters and their development. It's amazing. A...more

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Dec 06, 2008

Ryan rated it

· review of another edition

Stylistically this is what I would expect from Delillo, clinical prose used to scrutinize the ((post) modern) human condition. At times, such as during the writing class or when the children searching for 'Bill Lawton' it works. I didn't find it convincing when he dealt with Keith and Lianne's relationship. Then again, I've often felt that to be in a Delillo relationship is as far apart as two people can be.

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Jan 13, 2009

Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007-audio-books, 2007-general-fiction

Falling Man, by Don DeLillo. A.
Downloaded from audible.com.
In the opening scene of Falling Man, Keith Neudecker emerges from the smoke and ash of the burning tower where he worked and makes his way to the apartment
of his ex-wife and young son uptown. Throughout this bold and haunting novel, DeLillo traces the way the events of September 11 kindled or rekindled relationships,
reconfigured our emotional landscape, our memory, and our perception of the world. Falling Man is ...more

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Jan 27, 2012

Roger DeBlanck rated it

· review of another edition

DeLillo has always tackled challenging projects in his novels. It’s no surprise, then, that he is the type of writer who would feel necessity to address the events of 9/11. Falling Man begins on that dreadful Tuesday in 2001 with Keith Neubecker attempting to leave the World Trade Center site when the first tower collapses. Covered in the falling debris of broken glass and the ash of black smoke, he heads to the apartment of his ex-wife, Lianne, and his young son, Justin. he magnitude of the at...more

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Aug 13, 2011

Matt rated it

· review of another edition

Some random thoughts concerning Don DeLillo, his novel Falling Man and 9/11:

-I think I've finally realized why it's so hard to examine DeLiio's work, and that is because he does it for you. Reading DeLillo is like reading the novel and the CliffNotes version of that novel simultaneously. It creates an airtight literary structure, and I felt like I read most of the sentences twice.

-There is some haunting visual poetry in the double "L"s of "Falling" (and ...moreSome random thoughts concerning Don DeLillo, his novel Falling Man and 9/11:

-I think I've finally realized why it's so hard to examine DeLiio's work, and that is because he does it for you. Reading DeLillo is like reading the novel and the CliffNotes version of that novel simultaneously. It creates an airtight literary structure, and I felt like I read most of the sentences twice.

-There is some haunting visual poetry in the double "L"s of "Falling" (and DeLillo).

-Later in this novel, one the main characters becomes obsessed with poker (Texas Hold 'Em it appears). Now, seeing as this book came out in 2007, I had to wonder: did DeLillo fall into the poker craze of the late 00s like so many other B-list celebrities, soccer dads, and Internet card-sharks? Or was he simply making a point about how America soothed it's post 9/11 wounds with this new fad? And, if DeLillo DID become a poker fiend in his personal life, would I even be able to tell, because he's so damn good at concealing his personal influences? Either way, whether for research or pleasure, DeLillo definitely took a trip to Vegas sometime 2003-2006.

-Performance art as a way to deal with unspeakable tragedy seems entirely to be a New York thing, and the parts dealing with this subplot had a distinctive NY feel, like it wasn't for "us", only for "them". Actually, the book as a whole kinda had that feel.

-I wasn't really wild about this book, but the man can write. Check out this description of a fellow 9/11 survivor:
"She looked at him and got up. She went past the front door and down the hall. She was plain except when she laughed. She was someone on the subway. She wore loose skirts and plain shoes and was full-figured and maybe a little clumsy but when she laughed there was a flare in nature, an unfolding of something half hidden and dazzling."

-There's a scene later in the novel when Keith is chatting with his poker buddy in a casino, and they have a discussion over whether the waterfall in lobby is real or fake, a digital illusion. And then they discuss whether it matters if it's real or fake, etc...This is awful similar to the famous World's Most Photographed House scene from White Noise, and similar to dozens of other scenes from throughout DeLillo's career. And this got me thinking that DeLillo's characters exist in a world outside of narrative. This book could have been about a local plumbers union and it still would have been the same.
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May 03, 2011

Corey rated it

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This might be the worst book I have ever read. I randomly picked it up at the library a few years ago and couldn't believe how incredibly TERRIBLE this is. Apparently, Delillo has written novels that don't suck, but I will never know because I will NEVER EVER EVER read one of his books again. This book is the equivalent of staring at a blank white painted wall for days. You'll get the same effect and the outcome will be the same. In fact, the outcome probably won't be the same, because after day...more

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Feb 20, 2011

Becky rated it

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Hmmm. It's ten years since 9/11 but few people have dared to write about it. Perhaps because memories are still so vivid, because the pictures taken by 24 hour news coverage will endure for longer than radio reports and novels. Don DeLillo is one of those who has tried with this novel, but he attains limited success. He tells a tangled story of lives directly affected by the events of that day. The lead story of Keith, the man who escapes the Towers and runs to his estranged wife, is the st...more

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Jan 12, 2011

Kristoff Tilkin rated it

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In 'Players' van Don DeLillo (1977!) raakte een hoofdpersonage verstrikt in een complot om een bomaanslag te plegen in het hart van Manhattan. In 'De namen' uit 1982 registreerde de schrijver magistraal de vertwijfeling nadat de wereld op losse schroeven is gezet.

In 1991 heette het in 'Mao II' dat romanschrijvers hun invloed om ons DNA aan te tasten hebben moeten afstaan aan terroristen. En dan zwijgen we nog over dat bijna profetische omslag van 'Onderwereld', met die op een vliegtuig...moreIn 'Players' van Don DeLillo (1977!) raakte een hoofdpersonage verstrikt in een complot om een bomaanslag te plegen in het hart van Manhattan. In 'De namen' uit 1982 registreerde de schrijver magistraal de vertwijfeling nadat de wereld op losse schroeven is gezet.

In 1991 heette het in 'Mao II' dat romanschrijvers hun invloed om ons DNA aan te tasten hebben moeten afstaan aan terroristen. En dan zwijgen we nog over dat bijna profetische omslag van 'Onderwereld', met die op een vliegtuig lijkende vogel tussen de in mist gehulde Twin Towers. Kortom: als wij één man in staat achtten een prima roman over nine eleven af te scheiden, dan wel onze favoriete Don uit New York City.

In 'Vallende man' (Anthos/Manteau) focust DeLillo volop op de emotionele nasleep van de aanslagen. Net als in zijn knappe novelle 'Lichaamskunst', de onterecht lauw onthaalde opvolger van 'Onderwereld', beschrijft hij hoe enkele individuen houvast zoeken nadat de grond - in dit geval: de 220 verdiepingen van het World Trade Center - onder hun voeten is weggeslagen. Keith Neudecker trekt uit pure vertwijfeling weer in bij zijn ex-vrouw Lianne, al gaat hij wel naar bed met Florence - onsnappen uit brandende torens schept een band. Om het gapende gat in zijn vriendenkring te negeren (driekwart van zijn pokermakkers kwam om in de aanslagen) host hij van het ene internationale pokertoernooi naar het andere, waar hij zichzelf verdrinkt in 'de cruciale anonimiteit van deze dagen en weken, de vermenging van talloze levens waaraan geen verhalen waren verbonden'. Ook Lianne is uit haar lood geslagen, al is houvast bieden haar werk: ze geeft schrijflessen aan alzheimerpatiënten in een vroeg stadium - met de woorden kunnen ze hun gedachten ordenen en de opkomende mist in hun hoofd verdrijven.

Toch woekert de twijfel niet alleen aan de kant van de slachtoffers. DeLillo beschrijft ook hoe de fictieve moslimterrorist Hammad - samen met Mohammed Atta actief in de zogenaamde Hamburg-cel die de aanslagen moet voorbereiden - heen en weer wordt geslingerd tussen zijn eigen vastberadenheid en de angst voor de dood. Al helpt het wel om een duidelijk doel voor ogen te hebben: 'Een complot beperkte de wereld tot de smalste zichtlijn, waar alles tot één punt samenvloeit.'

Hapklare conclusie: in onze ranking met romans over de aanslagen van elf september 2001 staat 'Vallende man' vér boven het absolute nulpunt ('De terrorist' van John Updike), maar toch een paar trappen lager dan 'Extreem luid en ongelofelijk dichtbij' van Jonathan Safran Foer.(less)

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Sep 09, 2010

Diane rated it

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Shelves: novels, favorites

It’s been a long while since I’ve read a book that has compelled me to keep reading it; and by that I mean – in bed, while eating breakfast, lunch, and all the moments in between. This is my third DeLillo book. I loved White Noise. Gave up reading Underworld twice, once at the end of the first chapter, the second time, at the half-way point – a real dilemma – but when I started thinking it would have benefited from editing, I had to put it back on the shelf.

Falling Man is different. Fi...more

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Jun 13, 2010

Stephanie rated it

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Shelves: elib-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In a post-9/11 world, the characters of Don DeLillo's novel, Falling Man, each seek understanding. They forge new connections and previously unnecessary interrelations with fellow survivors, crowds of strangers, friends, family, and acquaintances. Some seek to be in control, to lose themselves in worlds of their own creation where they exist within certain parameters and rules that cannot be violated and yet still carry calculated risk; others seek to be controlled, to know there is an overarchi...moreIn a post-9/11 world, the characters of Don DeLillo's novel, Falling Man, each seek understanding. They forge new connections and previously unnecessary interrelations with fellow survivors, crowds of strangers, friends, family, and acquaintances. Some seek to be in control, to lose themselves in worlds of their own creation where they exist within certain parameters and rules that cannot be violated and yet still carry calculated risk; others seek to be controlled, to know there is an overarching system that establishes place and purpose for each individual seeking it, thus providing some element of stability, if not security. Collectively, they live the search for order, significance, a means of understanding self and situation. In his or her own way, each person seems to question: Who am I? Why am I here? What happens next? Nonetheless, these questions seem to reinvent rather than resolve themselves as the plot progresses, a trait mirrored in the very structure of the novel.

Falling Man begins with the events of September 11th and continues through the ensuing weeks, months, and years, yet it ends somewhat as it began. The opening scenes of the novel--the collapse of the World Trade Center and the escape of one character, Keith Neudecker--are only explained in the final chapter, where the plot thread of Hammad, a would-be terrorist in flight training, finally connects to the otherwise post-9/11 story. In the meantime, the Falling Man himself persists intermittently throughout, an unexplainable attraction and reminder of the interpersonal and behavioral changes brought into the characters' lives that prompt their continual searching and questions.

In typical DeLillo style, the characters and their situations in the novel are complex, and most, if not all, are well-educated and analytical. For readers unfamiliar with DeLillo’s novels and his narrative style, the multiple brief and overlapping plot threads can be somewhat non sequitur, and his persistent use of third-person pronouns in lieu of naming characters in the brief episodes can be confusing. Still, the novel offers several insightful perspectives from which to ponder the changes brought about by September 11th, as well as alternate ways to consider, if not answer, the universal questions the characters face.
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Jun 05, 2010

Joselito rated it

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This novel has a great backdrop: the 9-11 and how it affected the lives of several interesting characters (even two of the 9-11 terrorists are here). But this was overwhelmed by a lot of tricks which didn't work (for me):

a. sparse dialogues, words and phrases used instead of complete sentences. Instead, for example, of one character (Keith) telling his estrange wife (Lianne) that she did something stupid quarreling with a neighbor with the latter's vicious dog beside her, he would ju...more

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Nov 30, 2009

Chris rated it

· review of another edition

Falling Man is an insightful book by Don DeLillo, about the most pivotal event of our decade, the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The story is told by several characters in a multiple person narrative. This method of narration made the book difficult to read yet allows readers a deeper understanding into the thoughts and feelings of the character. This book revolves around Keith Neudecker, a lawyer who survived the terrorist attack. The book follows Keith as he tries to piece his life back ...more

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Nov 28, 2009

Nan rated it

· review of another edition

I'm not sure why Netherland received so much more hype than this book, which affected me to a much greater degree - but that's probably because I want a 9/11 novel to take me back to that day. I don't know why; there's no justifiable reason for wanting to re-experience, even vaguely, the feelings of that day and the ones that followed. And yet, by exploring them and recreating them so vividly in this book, DeLillo provided me with a strange, uncertain, extremely open-ended closure, if that makes...more

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Oct 18, 2009

John rated it

· review of another edition

It took me a long time after 2001 to even want to THINK about the events that occurred on 9-11 of that year. Call it denial or anything else you care to, I just chose to avoid revisiting what I and all Americans felt that day. I have read a great deal about the Muslim religion and Iraq and Afghanistan and politics and history....I just stayed away from the actual tragedies that occurred on the day itself. So it was with some trepidation that I listened to Don DeLillo's novel. But, in retrospect,...more

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Jan 22, 2011

Jan rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: adult-books, adult-books-with-reviews

This is the saddest, most depressing book I have read in a very long time. I feel like I have been dropped into the inner thoughts of two people who lived through the hell of September 11 and are doomed to be haunted by memories of this hell for ever. They are trying to make sense out of something that can't be made sense of.

The fictitious people I met in this story are so very real. Keith, who walked away from the burning towers,covered in someone else's blood. Lianne, his ex-wife...more

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About Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He currently lives outside of New York City.

Among the most influential American writers of the past decades, DeLillo has received, among author awards, a National Book Award (White Noise, 1985), a PEN/Faulkner Award (Mao II, 1991), and ...more

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“These are the days after. Everything now is measured by after.” — 29 people liked it

“You have to break through the structure of your own stonework habit just to make yourself listen.” — 6 people liked it

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