9/11 Fiction
I have to do a presentation on post 9/11 fiction for this class I'm taking. We were given a list of novels to choose from, but were told that if we found something else we wanted to use we could submit it to the professor for approval. Does anyone here have any suggestions? Some of the books on the list are alright, but I have a feeling there's something out there a little more up my alley (I'm a fan of Palahniuk's work, obviously, and alot of the suggested readings posted on this site). Anyway, if there's a post 9/11 fiction book flying under the radar please post it here, you would be helping me out a lot.
Definition of 9/11 fiction- fiction directly responding to the events of september 11th, or the changes that the event brought about. Meaning, the book can be a story directly related to the falling of the twin towers, or the state of mind that this event brought about, such as the war or 'code red' and so on and so on. Some of the books we've read thus far have the event looming in the background, but it isn't neccesarily the driving force of the novel. But it has to be somewhere in the book, to say the least. In other words, it can't just be a book that takes place after 9/11 if it isn't even an issue at all.
Weird Science fiction, funny books, are dark satires are definetly what I'd like.
-Bill J.
Beer, beer, beer, bed, bed, bed.
My favorite is [i]Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close[/i] by Johnathan Safran Foer. It's about a young boy whose father died in 9/11, and him dealing with both this tragedy and the story of his grandmother and grandfather, who emigrated from Europe during a similar tragedy.
There is hope, but not for us.
[QUOTE=jane s.;1068780]My favorite is [i]Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close[/i] by Johnathan Safran Foer. It's about a young boy whose father died in 9/11, and him dealing with both this tragedy and the story of his grandmother and grandfather, who emigrated from Europe during a similar tragedy.[/QUOTE]
Hey I was going to pick that one!
Didn't Coupland write one too?
[QUOTE=jane s.;1068780]My favorite is [i]Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close[/i] by Johnathan Safran Foer. It's about a young boy whose father died in 9/11, and him dealing with both this tragedy and the story of his grandmother and grandfather, who emigrated from Europe during a similar tragedy.[/QUOTE]
What are his other books about? Don't tell me Foer's been rewriting [I]Everything is Illuminated[/I] over and over again, just with different window dressing. If so, that's a tad disappointing. I was looking forward to checking the guy out eventually.
Oh, and I'd recommend [I]The Falling Man[/I], by Don DeLillo. Not that I've read it... but it's DeLillo. Can't be all that bad.
There's one called [I]The Third Brother[/I]. I haven't read it, but it looked pretty decent.
[URL=http://www.amazon.com/Third-Brother-Novel-Nick-McDonell/dp/0802142672/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-6894089-8848417?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193121484&sr=8-1]Amazon Link[/URL]
[QUOTE=Benny P.;1069134]What are his other books about? Don't tell me Foer's been rewriting [I]Everything is Illuminated[/I] over and over again, just with different window dressing. If so, that's a tad disappointing. I was looking forward to checking the guy out eventually.[/QUOTE]
It's totally different. The voice is even different.
I wanted to mention that book too, I think it's pretty incredible...
[QUOTE=Benny P.;1069136]Oh, and I'd recommend [I]The Falling Man[/I], by Don DeLillo. Not that I've read it... but it's DeLillo. Can't be all that bad.[/QUOTE]
I read the first pages of this of this somewhere - very good from what I saw.
[QUOTE=gman2065g;1068778]A good book I can recomend would be Painful Question by Eric Hufschmid. It is an analysis of the September 11th attacks. Great book [B]if you want to know the truth.[/B] If you want to read a fictional book on 9/11, just read the 9/11 Comission Report.[/QUOTE]
Spare me.
Don't go anywhere near this book (written, I might add, by a raging anti-semitic Zionist conspiracy theorist. Oh, but check out his website to learn that anti-semitism is in fact a construct created by Zionists to manipulate the people. So, I guess he's stumped me there.)
Then again, if you swallowed Loose Change 9/11 (directed by a 20-something wannabe filmmaker cretin who originally wanted to make "a fictional story about my friends and I discovering that September 11th was not a terrorist attack") you might enjoy it.
(By the way, I'm not of the opinion that there aren't any questions to be answered. It just pisses me off when someone refers to half-baked gibberish as "The Truth")
Anyway, I haven't read too much post-9/11 fiction, but I'd echo Jane's suggestion of [B]Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close[/B]. The guy's a very good writer.
Also:
William Gibson - [B]Pattern Recognition[/B]. Cool science-fictionish writer.
Martin Amis has written many articles about 9/11, but he also wrote [B]The Last Days of Muhammed Atta[/B], a short story based on the final hours of one of the main hijackers. You can find it [URL=http://www.martinamisweb.com/documents/lastdays_one.pdf]here[/URL].
Iain Banks - [B]Dead Air[/B]. I haven't read it, but he a very good (and funny) novelist and the book is set on Sept 11th.
Ian McEwan - [B]Saturday[/B]. The backdrop to the novel is the supposedly million-strong march in London protesting the Iraq invasion, and looking at how things have changed after 9/11.
Try False Impression by Jeffrey Archer. Its a really good story to do with the Twin Towers and the aftermath. Its worth reading even outside class.
I haven't read it, but [URL=http://www.amazon.com/WINDOWS-WORLD-Frederic-Beigbeder/dp/1401359884/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-2872432-8482563?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193128163&sr=8-2]this book [/URL]has been very successful.
what a dumb assignment, like those buildings going down was some turning point in american literature, its the kind of thing bad writers use to inject drama and pathos into anotherwise dull story, its like having somebody die from aids or whatever. Your teachers a sap.
There's also The Good Life by Jay McInerney. It follows the characters from Brightness Falls (but you don't have to read this in order to understand the story) who reassess their relationships and lives after the 9/11 attack (it's set in New York).
hey, thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to this.
Some of the books you suggested are already a part of our assigned reading; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Saturday, a few others. And there were a few that were on the possible choices for the final project.
I think I'll go with the Gibson novel. I haven't read any of his stuff yet and have been meaning to, and with project I'll have an excuse to do it. Of course, this is given that the professor actually let me use the book.
Beer, beer, beer, bed, bed, bed.
[QUOTE=Riddlegimp;1069172]Spare me.
Don't go anywhere near this book (written, I might add, by a raging anti-semitic Zionist conspiracy theorist. Oh, but check out his website to learn that anti-semitism is in fact a construct created by Zionists to manipulate the people. So, I guess he's stumped me there.)
Then again, if you swallowed Loose Change 9/11 (directed by a 20-something wannabe filmmaker cretin who originally wanted to make "a fictional story about my friends and I discovering that September 11th was not a terrorist attack") you might enjoy it.
(By the way, I'm not of the opinion that there aren't any questions to be answered. It just pisses me off when someone refers to half-baked gibberish as "The Truth")
Anyway, I haven't read too much post-9/11 fiction, but I'd echo Jane's suggestion of [B]Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close[/B]. The guy's a very good writer.
Also:
William Gibson - [B]Pattern Recognition[/B]. Cool science-fictionish writer.
Martin Amis has written many articles about 9/11, but he also wrote [B]The Last Days of Muhammed Atta[/B], a short story based on the final hours of one of the main hijackers. You can find it [URL=http://www.martinamisweb.com/documents/lastdays_one.pdf]here[/URL].
Iain Banks - [B]Dead Air[/B]. I haven't read it, but he a very good (and funny) novelist and the book is set on Sept 11th.
Ian McEwan - [B]Saturday[/B]. The backdrop to the novel is the supposedly million-strong march in London protesting the Iraq invasion, and looking at how things have changed after 9/11.[/QUOTE]
YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!! LMAO! That, or you are an agent. One of the two. LOL. :fing26:
9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!!! :sour:
Oh, Profane Prophet Gman from the Bowels of Hell - teach us all you know Dark Lord...
A good book I can recomend would be Painful Question by Eric Hufschmid. It is an analysis of the September 11th attacks. Great book if you want to know the truth. If you want to read a fictional book on 9/11, just read the 9/11 Comission Report.