Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11

If you're looking for an excellent book about 9/11, then look no further. This book will give the reader a clear idea of what it must've been like to actually be there in Manhatten and see the carnage first-hand. Read the true stories of men & women who experienced 9/11 and learn about how it has changed their lives forever. See the horrors from their perspective; the fires, the smoke, the debris, the falling bodies, the pandemonium, the collapse the the towers, and the aftermath. This book is a must have.

This book is great and gives the outsider a clear glimps into the devistation and heroism of the tragedy on 9/11 and the months that followed. Each story leaves the reader with a message that makes one truly think and reflect on the tragedy. This book is a touching tribute to those lost, the heroes born, and the city that pulled it together to rise out of the ashes!

I believe that, years from now, two documents will survive as the recognized history of September 11th: the 9/11 Commission Report and Damon DiMarco's incredible oral history. The Commission Report offers in-depth documentation of the attack and the forces preceding it. But it falls short of providing the personal recollections so vital to understanding history. TOWER STORIES picks up where the Commission Report leaves off. It humanizes stark fact and grants us the priceless opportunity to reach our own understanding of the event we must never forget.

I was wondering when somebody was going to put something out about this tragedy that wasn't a self-serving glorification or woe-is-us pablum. This book tells it like it was, in the hours and days after this horrible event, in the words of the people who were there, and elsewhere. DiMarco has done an incredible job of deciding what to include in this as each first person account is different, with different emotions and reasons for being. Some people you want to smack in the head for some of the things they say, like this one NY detective who talks about the ways of the street and how to get suspected terrorists to talk and how much he thinks the FBI is useless, and yet you also side with him because he seems to get results-- in his own limited world-view scope. Others break your heart with their stories of loss-- like the lead singer of the New York band The Bogmen whose wife Kristy perished in the Towers, and who years earlier had started the charity Secret Smiles,(to which DiMarco has pledged a portion of the royalties) and the husband of a flight attendant who was on the plane that went down in PA. He tells an incredible story of his incredibly life-loving wife-- you get to know her in his few page contribution that you end up crying your eyes out when it's finally revealed what he goes through when her fate is revealed. And that's predominantly what it's like to read Tower Stories. My wife is a pretty hard-nosed New Yorker but she spent an entire night sobbing and laughing while reading this book. It really captures the history of that horrible day as best I can tell, at least from what I imagine. Like the Chairman of the 9/11 Commission Tom Kean says in the foreword, this book continues the tradition of The Grapes of Wrath and The Disinherited and most of Stud's Terkel's work in that it creates a time-capsule for all eternity. Thankfully someone has done it. Let's just hope it's never again needed.

Let me start by saying this: I'm a retired Chief for the United States Navy and when I was in the Service, I got a chance to tour a lot of countries on this planet - first hand and up close. Some of them are great and some of them are not so great. The truth is that none of them come close to being the United States of America. I'm not waving any flags here. I'm saying that - from what I've seen - this country is the best experiment in human rights ever attempted throughout history. Yes, we've got our problems. Sure we do. Democracy is like the wood saw I keep out in my tool shed; you have to keep sharpening the edge if you want it to work real good. But just as people most people don't fully appreciate the freedoms offered to us here as citizens of the U.S., I think a lot of people don't know how to react to the attacks on September 11th. And that's why TOWER STORIES is important. I liked a lot of things about this book. First, it's a broad collection. Reading each story, I was able to see view the attacks and the aftermath from multiple perspectives. This was especially important for me since I live in the South. I spent 9/11 and the days after glued to my television set, trying to figure out what was going on. I desperately wanted to know more. Three years later, this book closed a lot of holes for me. Second, when you read this book you hear the voices of the people who were actually there. I'm an amateur student of history, so I appreciate first person recollections. Oral history is the purest form of history available, and I wish that more events throughout history had been recorded as thoroughly as Mr. DiMarco did these interviews. This book is a tremendous undertaking. Finally - and maybe most important - I appreciated TOWER STORIES because I believe it will outlast the politicians and media pundits who are circling in to make 9/11 a campaign marketing issue. THANK GOD TOWER STORIES rises above! It's a real and necessary contribution to American history. In the midst of turbulent times, I found it inspirational, moving and refreshingly real. Hats of to Mr. DiMarco. I will look forward to more of his work. To borrow a line from Commissioner Kean's foreword, "With regard to 9/11, we - as a people - cannot allow a myth to take root...Move forward we must."