false 28700 19 The defining moment of turn-of-the-21st-century America is perfectly portrayed in National Book Award winner Don DeLillo's <i>Falling Man</i>. The book takes its title from the electrifying photograph of the man who jumped or fell from the North Tower on 9/11. It also refers to a performance artist who recreates the picture. The artist straps himself into a harness and in high visibility areas jumps from an elevated structure, such as a railway overpass or a balcony, startling passersby as he hangs in the horrifying pose of the falling man. <p> Keith Neudecker, a lawyer and survivor of the attack, arrives on his estranged wife Lianne's doorstep, covered with soot and blood, carrying someone else's briefcase. In the days and weeks that follow, moments of connection alternate with complete withdrawl from his wife and young son, Justin. He begins a desultory affair with the owner of the briefcase based only on their shared experience of surviving: "the timeless drift of the long spiral down." Justin uses his binoculars to scan the skies with his friends, looking for "Bill Lawton" (a misunderstood version of bin Laden) and more killing planes. Lianne suddenly sees Islam everywhere: in a postcard from a friend, in a neighbor's music--and is frightened and angered by its ubiquity. She is riveted by the Falling Man. Her mother Nina's response is to break up with her long-time German lover over his ancient politics. In short, the old ways and days are gone forever; a new reality has taken over everyone's consciousness. This new way is being tried on, and it doesn't fit. Keith and Lianne weave into reconciliation. Keith becomes a professional poker player and, when questioned by Lianne about the future of this enterprise, he thinks: "There was one final thing, too self-evident to need saying. She wanted to be safe in the world and he did not." <p> DeLillo also tells the story of Hammad, one of the young men in flight training on the Gulf Coast, who says: "We are willing to die, they are not. This is our srength, to love death, to feel the claim of armed martyrdom." He also asks: "But does a man have to kill himself in order to accomplish something in the world?" His answer is that he is one of the hijackers on the plane that strikes the North Tower. <p> At the end of the book, De Lillo takes the reader into the Tower as the plane strikes the building. Through all the terror, fire and smoke, De Lillo's voice is steady as a metronome, recounting exactly what happens to Keith as he sees friends and co-workers maimed and dead, navigates the stairs and, ultimately, is saved. Though several post-9/11 novels have been written, not one of them is as compellingly true, faultlessly conceived, and beautifully written as Don De Lillo's <i>Falling Man</i>. <I>--Valerie Ryan</I> 941585 15 5 2007 Falling Man: A Novel total:2193|5:207|4:599|3:817|2:421|1:149| 2193 6873 3377 507 1 11 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 15 13:22:21 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 15 13:40:07 -0700 2007
Falling Man tackles 9/11 head-on, opening with 39 year old businessman Keith walking bruised and bloody ou...more...]]> 0 5 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 07:24:19 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 07:24:19 -0700 2007 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 ...more...]]> 2 3 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 22 01:33:19 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 27 00:02:16 -0700 2007
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 lik...more...]]> 1 4 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 30 04:48:33 -0700 2007 Thu May 31 07:02:20 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 02 08:07:38 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 12 10:02:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 17 08:06:01 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 17 08:09:26 -0700 2008
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 c...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 19 07:28:50 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 16:35:50 -0700 2007
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 ph...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 12 19:29:04 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 16 19:29:19 -0700 2008 3 1 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 18:55:41 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 10:06:14 -0700 2008 2 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...more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Jul 24 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 05 08:26:22 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 05 08:29:01 -0700 2008
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 tog...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue May 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 18:31:48 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 20:57:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 09:19:19 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 09:19:19 -0700 2007 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 c...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Mar 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 14:57:24 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 20 08:30:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Nov 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 13 09:43:51 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 02:08:14 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jan 13 18:12:02 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 18:12:46 -0800 2009 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 haunt...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 13:24:17 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 13:35:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 10:58:33 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 11:14:12 -0700 2009
This book immed...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 22 12:05:46 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 03 18:38:48 -0700 2007 ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jun 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 18:02:51 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 09:28:59 -0700 2009
Favorite Quotes

She realized how much she hated to stand in line with a number in her fist. She hated this regimen of assigned numbers, strictly enforced, in a confined space, with nothing at the end of the process but a sm...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:44:12 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:44:12 -0800 2009 New York native Don DeLillo confronts his city's most horrendous tragedy. Those expecting the interwoven subterfuge and bravado sentence making of Underworld or White Noise might be disappointed. This is a stark, intensely personal story that provokes some equally impassioned__and sharply divided__r...

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