Fall and Rise

Starred review from March 11, 2019
The horror and heroism of 9/11 are brought to life in this panoramic history. Boston University journalism professor Zuckoff, who covered the attacks for the Boston Globe, traces the day’s events through the stories of dozens of people who experienced them: the hijackers as they put the finishing touches on their plot and set it in motion; the hijacked aircrew and passengers stunned by the unfolding nightmare; the air-traffic controllers, FAA officials, and military officers who struggled to piece together what was happening in the skies (Zuckoff shows how miscommunication delayed crucial measures that might have saved lives); workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as they scrambled to escape from the growing infernos; and the firefighters who risked their lives to rescue them. Zuckoff draws skillfully on interviews with survivors, family reminiscences, audio documents (including farewell phone calls from doomed victims), tapes from the cockpit of United Flight 93 where passengers fought to take the plane back from the hijackers, and forlorn notes—one reading “84th floor. West office. 12 people trapped” drifted down from a tower—to flesh out the violence, chaos, and occasional moments of grace. The result is a superb, harrowing retelling of this most dramatic of stories.

Starred review from March 1, 2019
A meticulously delineated, detailed, graphic history of the events of 9/11 in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.Working at the Boston Globe as an investigative journalist, Zuckoff (Journalism/Boston Univ.; 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi, 2014, etc.) spent months after 9/11 publishing pieces on the tragedy's victims and their families and friends. He decided to revisit the personal sagas so that future generations of readers will fully understand this watershed moment in American history. The author divides the book into three sections: what happened inside the cabins and cockpits of the four hijacked planes; what happened on the ground at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside; and reports on what happened to some of the survivors after 9/11. Zuckoff mostly avoids references to the hijackers' possible motivations as well as speculation on why the government failed to halt the sometimes-amateurish terrorist plot despite multiple warnings from alert sources. The author also eschews lengthy commentary on the massive reduction in civil liberties in the U.S. as governments at all levels implemented drastic policies to halt future terrorist attacks. In each of the three sections, Zuckoff offers a cross-section of widely representative individuals and then builds the relentlessly compelling narrative around those real-life protagonists. Despite the story's sprawling cast, which could have sabotaged a book by a less-skilled author, Zuckoff ably handles all of the complexities. Even readers who might normally balk at reliving 9/11 and its aftermath are quite likely to find the accounts of gruesome deaths, seemingly miraculous survivals, and courageous first responders difficult to set aside for an emotional break. In two appendices, the author provides a "timeline of key events" and a list of "the nearly three thousand names as they appear inscribed in bronze on the 9/11 Memorial in New York."Zuckoff did not set out to write a feel-good book, and the subject matter is unquestionably depressing at times. Nonetheless, as contemporary history, Fall and Rise is a clear and moving success.

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May 1, 2019

On September 11, 2001, 2,996 people died in a series of four carefully planned, skillfully executed attacks against the United States, notably at the sites of the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia. Then a Boston Globe reporter, Zuckoff (Sumner M. Redstone Professor of Narrative Studies, Boston Univ.; 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi) wrote the lead story on the day of the attacks. Here, he reconstructs the event using a series of vignettes about the four planes and the tragedy that resulted, relating survivors' stories interspersed with what is known of the last minutes of those who perished that day. The author also mentions some of the lasting mental and physical injuries experienced by survivors and first responders. The facts overall are well known, but Zuckoff succeeds in humanizing the terror. He mostly avoids the domestic and international response, instead choosing to focus on the victims and their stories. VERDICT Though difficult to read, this emotional compilation will find a place with other 9/11 histories for its thorough recounting of the human cost of political violence.--Edwin Burgess, Kansas City, KS

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.