A Decade of Hope

August 8, 2011
Smith (Report from Ground Zero), a former firefighter, collects 25 moving personal narratives in this significant addition to the literature of September 11. Featuring notable figures such as NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Congressman Peter King alongside rescue workers and victims’ family members and loved ones, Smith’s interviewees offer their experiences of that tragic day, illustrating how the pain and losses are still acutely felt. Smith absents himself from the dialogue, allowing the book’s focus to remain solely on his diverse narrators, whose essays combine to offer a message of surprising hope and renewal: Akiko Takahashi, who lost her father, volunteers at the WTC visitor center, giving tours and sharing her story; Rudy Abad, a former Merrill Lynch analyst who lost his wife, returned to his native Philippines to build a village in her honor; Erin Jackman, whose sister Brooke was killed, became president of a literacy organization, to pass on Brooke’s passion for literature. With restraint and pathos, Smith’s book provides powerful tribute and testimony.

August 15, 2011

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is memorialized through 25 heartrending accounts of loss and resilience.

As with his Report from Ground Zero (2002), retired firefighter and prolific author Smith (San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires, 2005, etc.) assembles another compilation of courageous stories, many from interviews conducted with dedicated civil servants like the tireless NYFD firefighters, policemen and other Ground Zero attendants who directly responded to the disaster in 2001. Brooklyn fire operations chief Dan Nigro recalls running for his life when the South Tower collapsed around him; he goes on to spiritedly reflect on his 33 years on the force and shares his outspoken opinion on America's Middle-Eastern political involvement ("I think it's crap"). While FDNY lung specialist David Prezant dug himself out from falling debris to manage a triage area for the seriously wounded, Ladder 6 Captain Jay Jonas and his men raced against time to rescue resilient civilian Josephine Harris. Police commissioner Ray Kelly and chairman of Homeland Security Peter King authoritatively describe counterterrorism measures and strategies currently in place to thwart further terrorist activity, though King emerges as less optimistic about the country's short-term anti-terrorist goals. While the focus is clearly on recollections from the brotherhood of Ground Zero rescue firefighters, Smith presents a well-rounded selection of interviews, prefaced with descriptive information. From a Manhattan high-school principal whose unshakable faith kept her strong, to grief-stricken widows, brothers, sisters and countless families fractured by devastating losses, Smith consistently wrings moving humanity from each contributor's story.

A stirring tapestry of real-life heroes.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from September 1, 2011
Dennis Smith, a former New York City firefighter, follows his best-selling Report from Ground Zero (2002) with a monumental oral history in which family members of 9/11 victims and first responders and their families share scalding memories, complex regrets, and hard-won affirmations as they look back on a decade of loss and life lessons. Firefighting is often a family affair; consequently, firefighters talk sorrowfully and proudly about losing fathers, brothers, and sons. Ada Rosario Dolch, the principal of a nearby high school, was traumatized for years after courageously guiding her staff and students to safety while her sister died in the World Trade Center. Smith's contributors are blunt in discussing the macabre work of recovering 19,979 body parts and in confessing to debilitating fears and outright fury over the possibility of a mosque being built near Ground Zero. Some feel that their 9/11 experiences made them better human beings; others report that they are psychologically scarred; many worry about the health effects of the toxic dust and feel that we've learned little from the disaster. With the help of his daughter, Deirdre, Smith's expert and caring crafting makes for dramatic testimony about an epoch-defining disaster and its epic reverberations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)