Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-tile-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.

Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-tile-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 rubble into a fife that he'd always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes.

These are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history.

Brave and brilliant, FallingMan traces the way the events of September 11 have reconfig-ured our emotional landscape, our memory and our perception of the world. It is cathartic,beautiful, heartbreaking.