Falling Men in the Post-9/11 Novel

Since September 11, 2011, reality has not only outstripped fiction, it’s destroying it. It’s impossible to write about this subject, and yet impossible to write about anything else. Nothing else touches us. (Beigbeder 8) On an early and sunny Tuesday morning in September 2001 the unimaginable happened, 2973 people were killed in an attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Within 15 minutes two airplanes hit the Twin Towers and heralded a new age; “the age of terror”. The trauma begins at 8:46 AM local time with the crashing of the first plane into The North Tower. The tower will collapse 102 minutes later. These 102 minutes show images of crashing planes, burning and collapsing towers and people jumping from windows. These images spread around the world and were repeated endlessly, “framing them in the discourses of heroism, patriotism, innocence and trauma” (Däwes 2). The images of 9/11 burned themselves into the memories of contemporary witnesses. On this Tuesday the World Trade Center literally becomes the center of the world. What is happening inside the burning towers remains invisible. Everyone who is located above the crashed planes is left with the choice to burn or to jump. About 200 people throw themselves out of the windows. [...]