Falling Man

Title: Falling Man

Author: Don DeLillo

Number of pages: 246

Started: 22 June 2010

Finished: 24 June 2010

Opening words:

It was not a street anymore, but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their faces or jackets over their heads. They had handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths. They had shoes in their hands, a woman with a shoe in each hand, running past him. They ran and fell, some of them, confused and ungainly, with debris coming down around them, and there were people taking shelter under cars.

Plot summary:

There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years.
Falling Man begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and traces the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few individuals. Theirs are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history.


What I thought:

What to say about this book? I think, primarily, that I wasn’t a fan. I found the book a bit pretentious and as though it was trying to be profound, but didn’t quite succeed in doing it in a way that was credible or appealing.

I didn’t really feel as though the book had a purpose as such and that it rather drifted without making any real point. It wasn’t a book that I enjoyed particularly, it was based on a very sensitive issue – the 11 September attacks on the US – but I feel the book lacked substance or any real meaning.