How? By employing the strategy of all fiction writers: reaching for the universal through the particulars, through specific tales of individual characters.
That’s not to say that all these writers told the same story in the same way. Some found it impossible to get the flaming towers out of their imaginations; for others only the shadows remained, silent but unmistakable.
■ Don DeLillo, “Falling Man’’ (2007): In retrospect 9/11 seems like a product of DeLillo’s imagination - a terrifying dystopic event. Protagonist Keith, who worked in the towers, tries to find solid ground as he keeps re-experiencing the horror, flailing between his ex-wife and a fellow survivor whose briefcase he accidentally took.
■ Deborah Eisenberg, “Twilight of the Superheroes’’ (2006): Aspiring architect Nathaniel moves to a spectacular Manhattan sublet with dreams of creative success. After 9/11, he struggles to make sense of it all. “When they’d moved in, it probably was the best view on the planet. Then, one morning, out of a clear blue sky, it became, for a while, probably the worst,’’ the narrator says. “But now it’s unclear what they are, in fact, looking at.’’
■ Julia Glass, “The Whole World Over’’ (2007): New York chef Greenie Duquette takes a job at the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe - bringing her young son but leaving her downer husband behind. She falls in love with an environmentalist; the husband reinvigorates his life. But 9/11 brings them back together, showing Greenie what really matters. That’s one heck of a deus ex machina.
■ Ken Kalfus, “A Disorder Peculiar to the Country’’ (2006): Reconciliation after tragedy? Kalfus takes the opposite tack. On 9/11, warring soon-to-be-ex-spouses Joyce and Marshall Harriman are both devastated to hear the other has survived. In this dark comedy, the couple’s vicious divorce battle comes to mirror the violence and conflicts of the post-9/11 world.
