‘Because it has to be.’

‘It has to be,’ he said.

‘The way the camera sort of shows surprise.’

‘But only the first one.’

‘Only the first,’ she said.

‘The second plane, by the time the second plane appears,’ he said, ‘we’re all a little older and wiser.'”

The Falling Man, Don DeLillo

Today will be a day when the skin of most Americans prickles in memory, starting a chain reaction through our bodies to our hearts.  Seven years later, writers are beginning to delve into just what that moment was for us and how it radiates out into the rest of our lives.  Two novels I read this year do just that.  Falling Man by Don DeLillo and A Dangerous Age by Ellen Gilchrist.

September 30, 2008 Columbus, Georgia