110 Stories : New York Writes after September 11

Visit the 110 Stories web site Read the Table of Contents Read the IntroductionNamed as one of USA Today''s most promising books on September 11th.Vivid, creative.--ForecastA smart idea...[drawing from] the incredible talent pool of New York City writers to consecrate the attack on the World Trade Center.--Kirkus ReviewsThe wide range of writing styles and viewpoints, as well as Art Spiegelman''s striking cover art, make this anthology a popular read. --Library JournalThe works collected here capture both the diversity of the people of New York and how surreal the catastrophe felt for those close to Ground Zero. A touching and memorable collection.--Carlos Orellana, Booklist, September, 2002110 Stories, with an arresting cover image by Art Speigelman, presents a fractured view of last year''s events...What we''re left with is the way the tragedy fits into individual lives, the impression it makes on impressionable, expressive people.--NewsdayEffective in producing a wonderful sense of alienation which allows the reader to perceive language and events afresh.-- Politics and Culture[A] heartfelt collection of poems, recollections, and short works.-- School Library JournalA testament to the power of words to transform trauma into something manageable.--The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionEven if you found the event itself sufficiently searing, many of these pieces provide a new way of approaching the devastation, loss, bewilderment, the sense of morality-- and immorality-- connections and disconnects that it engendered.-The East Hampton StarNew York University professor Ulrich Baer turned to literature to escape post-9-11 media commentary and political rhetoric...The book creates a community of writers and a place to collect memories.--The Jewish WeekNew York is a city of writers. And when the city was attacked on 9/11, its writers began to do what writers do, they began to look and feel and think and write, began to struggle to process an event unimaginable before, and even after, it happened. The work of journalists appeared immediately, in news reports, commentaries, and personal essays. But no single collection has yet recorded how New York writers of fiction, poetry, and dramatic prose have responded to 9/11.Now, in 110 Stories, Ulrich Baer has gathered a multi-hued range of voices that convey, with vivid immediacy and heightened imagination, the shock and loss suffered in September. From a stunning lineup of 110 renowned and emerging writers-including Paul Auster, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Edwidge Danticat, Vivian Gornick, Phillip Lopate, Dennis Nurkse, Melvin Bukiet, Susan Wheeler-these stories give readers not so much an analysis of what happened as the very shape and texture of a city in crisis, what it felt like to be here, the external and internal damage that the city and its inhabitants absorbed in the space and the aftermath of a few unforgettable hours. As A.M. Homes says in one of the book''s eyewitness accounts, There is no place to put this experience, no folder in the mental hard drive that says, ''catastrophe.'' It is not something that you want to remember, not something that you want to forget. This collection testifies to the power of poetry and storytelling to preserve and give meaning to what seems overwhelming. It showcases the literary imagination in its capacity to gauge the impact of 9/11 on how we view the world. Just as the stories of the World Trade towers were filled with people from all walks of life, the stories collected here reflect New York''s true diversity, its boundless complexity and polyglot energy, its regenerative imagination, and its spirit of solidarity and endurance.The editorÆs proceeds will be donated to charity. Cover art donated by Art Spiegelman.List of Contributors: Humera Afridi, Ammiel Alcalay, Elena Alexander, Meena Alexander, Jeffery Renard Allen, Roberta Allen, Jonathan Ames, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Auster, Jennifer Belle, Jenifer Berman, Charles Bernstein, Star Black, Breyten Breyt

Ulrich Baer is Associate Professor of German literature at New York University.