Book Review 2: 9-11 Redux

Falling Man
Don De Lillo
Scribner 2007

Falling Man is a theme of the the artist Ernest Trova and a series of Statuary he developed which became very popular and internationally renowned. His work is displayed locally at the corner of Maryland and Brentwood in Clayton and all through Lauermeier Sculpture Park. One of his large benefactors was a St. Louisan and Trova worked here for many years. When I saw the title of the book I was surprised based on past experience that no one had sued De Lillo for using the name. There were book analyzing it’s themes and even though I never got it, it was termed “brilliant”.

Don De Lillo’s book, like Trova’s art is brilliant and problematic. Why? He is so dense and methodical in his writing style which illuminates characters and personalities so well, but, damn... sometimes he is boring and hard to read. His stories unfold inside peoples heads and in totally unmemorable dialogue. All that having been said he has a lot to say. He takes on the issues of the time.

Falling Man is a post 9-11 New York book. It starts with the main character wandering away from his office in the World trade Center, dazed and with a strange briefcase. He goes back to his wife and some from whom he had been separated and they try and rebuild their marriage and their life in a city that has become surreal to them. The briefcase he was wandering with is not his and when he goes to return it he finds the widowed wife of it’s holder and... comforting ensues.

His wife has a lot to deal with on her own with an odd child and a difficult, arty, opinionated mother. She is a mess and her damaged husband coming back does a lot less healing then continuing and unsettled damage. As I said all of this is against the backdrops of Rudy Guliani’s post 9-11 New York. One of the ongoing experiences in the book is a performance artist who goes around with a harness and jumps (falls) like he was jumping from a burning building, who then hangs and dangles around time. It is obviously a disturbing image.

Later in the book he crawls inside one of the terrorists heads and the picture he paints is troubling. A man with a lot of morality and moral judgments all very convicting against America and dogmatic and close minded and.... evil. His life and his day to day routine as he carries out his training. It is jarring because he is operating in a pre 9-11 world while the couple is feeling their way through the epicenter of that event.

As I said the book is a somewhat difficult read because his writing style is dense and detailed. But it is almost NEVER without purpose. Everything he throws you early as you are laboring through it early comes back to you in ah-ha moments late in the book and late in the book is where the payoff is. We follow the couple through their continuing, committed, dysfunctional marriage. He finds solace (not really) in poker, immersing himself in the game in Vegas and running across one of his old poker buddies from NYC and making a living but... it all seems joyless. She goes through the death of her mother and begins attending church services as she ambles through her life and raising her son. The last 50 pages are tightly written and hard to put down. You want to see what happens and he wraps it up nicely with the “falling man”, a failing marriage and deeply flawed people cycling back... and back... to one Saudi in a plane... in a jump seat... on 9-11. I do not and did not hunger for recalling that day but this book more then overcame my emotional exhaustion to make new points about tragedy, trauma and never really moving on. De Lillo.... he good.

8 Slingers on the 10 scale.