'Falling Man': The day it all came down
In DeLillo's fictional take on 9/11, it's society that seems to be collapsing.
from the May 29, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Dialogue is ludicrously disjointed and clipped. A key conversation in which Lianne discusses their future:
"There are things I understand."
"All right."
"I understand there are some men who are only half here. Let's not say men. Let's say people. People who are more or less obscure at times."
"You understand this."
Interspersed with the Neudeckers' story are a few incongruous chapters about one of the terrorists in the planes.
"Falling Man" takes its title from a fictional performance artist who, in the weeks after 9/11, grotesquely evokes the famous photograph of a man jumping from the burning towers. Falling Man plunges head-first from various edifices, caught by a harness hidden in his business suit.
More than towers fall in DeLillo's novel. But the social harnesses that keep his characters from hitting the pavement – marriage, family, church, poker – don't arresttheir descents altogether. One wishes DeLillo had written a book that made us want to reach out and catch them ourselves.
• Heller McAlpin is a freelance writer in New York.
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