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Balcony View - a 9/11 Diary
BALCONY VIEW - a 9/11/ Diary tells how ordinary people get through an extraordinary time.
On September 11, 2001, Julia Frey is brushing her husband’s teeth when a bunch of fanatics armed with box-cutters and a few flying lessons crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. Out the apartment window, there is nothing between her and the burning Towers. What would you have done that day? Julia Frey’s Diary tells how she and her disabled husband escape the attacks and survive the terrible aftermath. Living in a crime scene, breathing the polluted air from the burning ruins and struggling with progressive illness – BALCONY VIEW describes six months at Ground Zero with honesty, tenderness and wry humor. What doesn’t kill you... There is even a happy ending.
On September 11, 2001, Julia Frey is brushing her husband’s teeth when a bunch of fanatics armed with box-cutters and a few flying lessons crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. Out the apartment window, there is nothing between her and the burning Towers. What would you have done that day? Julia Frey’s Diary tells how she and her disabled husband escape the attacks and survive the terrible aftermath. Living in a crime scene, breathing the polluted air from the burning ruins and struggling with progressive illness – BALCONY VIEW describes six months at Ground Zero with honesty, tenderness and wry humor. What doesn’t kill you... There is even a happy ending.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 2, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 5, 2019
Could have been better
The details of coping with the sorrow and shock of 9/11 while dealing with a dying husband, who is becoming more debilitated by the day, made for an interesting book. But why in the word would a mature, successful woman reveal the tawdry threesome sideline story? Without revealing very much about the history, the writer never gave any reason for he "red herring" over than to do a middle school expose. It did not do anything except to diminish both she and her late husband's image in this reader's eyes. Plus, she presents her birthplace, Louisville, Kentucky, as being some kind of magnolia shrouded southern plantation instead of the prosperous, cosmopolitan city that it is, and only barely qualifies as being in the south.
The details of coping with the sorrow and shock of 9/11 while dealing with a dying husband, who is becoming more debilitated by the day, made for an interesting book. But why in the word would a mature, successful woman reveal the tawdry threesome sideline story? Without revealing very much about the history, the writer never gave any reason for he "red herring" over than to do a middle school expose. It did not do anything except to diminish both she and her late husband's image in this reader's eyes. Plus, she presents her birthplace, Louisville, Kentucky, as being some kind of magnolia shrouded southern plantation instead of the prosperous, cosmopolitan city that it is, and only barely qualifies as being in the south.
April 5, 2020
The book was much less about the events and aftermath of 9/11 and more about the author’s personal life. And quite candidly, while I acknowledge the raw honesty of the book, I was not a fan of the author after having read this. She seems incredibly self-centered and conceited.
June 23, 2012
Julia Frey has written a wonderfully poised book about survival and sanity in the midst of horrific disaster.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews