Report from Ground Zero

Dennis Smith

Many books will be written about September the 11th. Perhaps you will read some of them, but I guarantee you will not read one like this.

The first half of REPORT FROM GROUND ZERO consists almost exclusively of vox pop-type accounts of the events of that day by those who were there, the firemen, police and other rescue workers. Now, I am a fairly unemotional reader - for example, I have never shed tears over a book - but there are passages in here - lots of them - which would bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye of a statue. On not a few occasions I had to stop reading and get my emotions under control. What makes this part of the book such a powerful document is the unassuming, matter-of-fact way in which these men and women recount events in which they found themselves so embroiled by virtue of no other fact than that of their occupation. Their selfless heroism - and it is heroism - is testimony to all that is good in the human spirit.

In the second half of the book, the author looks at the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers in the form of a day-by-day diary. This is just as moving as part one. Accounts of funerals, the effects on survivors and their families, the human cost, all the unseen effects are again interspersed with vox pop accounts, often equally moving.

This is more than just a book about September the 11th. I picked up REPORT FROM GROUND ZERO expecting to read a documentary-type account of that appalling moment in human history; instead I found a thought-provoking piece of work which left me pondering many, many things: fate, faith, duty, life...

Last summer, I visited the WTC with my kids scant weeks before the fateful day. It never crossed my mind that I was standing on top of a terrorist target. It never crossed my mind that the ground I was walking on would soon be buried under 100' of rubble. When I go back this summer I shall visit Ground Zero, and spare a silent thought for all those whose lives were changed that day and ponder on the message of this book.