Expressing the horror
Writers put the unspeakable into words, the words into a book

By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 10, 2001

 

As one horror followed another on Sept. 11, novelist William Hazelgrove, like most Americans, found it impossible to work.

His latest manuscript forgotten, Hazelgrove was glued to the television. And as over and over he watched a hijacked plane bury itself into the body of one of the World Trade Center towers, he found himself unable to quite comprehend it all. "The event was so horrific," the Oak Park-based writer says, "it didn't compute."

But writers write, and so it wasn't many hours before Hazelgrove sat down at his computer terminal to draft a short essay.

Addressing "my fallen countrymen" who died in the collapse of the two towers, he wrote, "You were us. A beautiful day yawned outside until that screaming darkness slammed into your window. Then you fell and we watched."

Posted at Page ONE, a literary newsletter Web site (www.pageonelit.com), the essay prompted others by more than two dozen writers, including humorist Dave Barry, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert and novelists such as Carl Hiaasen and Jacquelyn Mitchard.

Now Hazelgrove is collecting those essays and soliciting others for an unusual "instant" book that he and John Weaver, the proprietor of the Web site, hope to get to press and on store shelves within weeks -- all proceeds to go to one of the many relief efforts.

Like all Americans, the essayists were stunned, angered and grief-stricken. But they're able to put into words what many of their fellow citizens have been unable to express.

"What I can't get out of my mind," writes Barry, "is the fact that they used our own planes. I grew up in the Cold War, when we always pictured the threat as coming in the form of missiles -- sleek, efficient death machines, unmanned, hurtling over the North Pole from far away. But what came, instead, were our own commercial airlines, big friendly flying buses coming from Newark and Boston with innocent people on board."

Bill Crider, a writer of mystery, western, horror and science fiction works, was aghast at what he witnessed: "I saw terrified people leaping from the upper floors of that same tower. (I cannot begin to imagine the terror that was behind them to make them choose to jump.) I saw the towers crumble into dust. I felt hollow inside, as if someone had opened my chest and emptied me out."

"Instant" books, written and rushed to store shelves within weeks of a major national or international event, have been staples of the publishing industry for at least four decades.

Traditionally, these have reprinted public documents or have pulled together reporting, background and photos from many sources in an attempt to put the event in perspective. Two such books are being issued this week: "Our Mission and Our Moment," a $6 paperback from Newmarket Press that is essentially a transcription of President George W. Bush's Sept. 20 speech to Congress, and "America Attacked: Terrorists Declare War on America," a $14.95 paperback from the relatively obscure publisher University Press, California.

Wary of `instant' book

Major publishers, however, are steering away from attempting the usual "instant" book because, they say, the news media have done and continue to do such an exhaustive job of reporting, analyzing and investigating the attacks and their aftermath.

The book Hazelgrove is shepherding to press -- he's still looking for a publisher -- is much different from the usual run of such books, inasmuch as it seeks to get beyond the facts to the emotional-psychological impact of the tragedies. "As a writer, each day, you're trying to, well, define existence," Hazelgrove says. "A writer can tell you, in a human way, what this means -- what it means to your soul."

Consider these excerpts:

- Novelist Audrey Schulman can't get the drone of a combat plane out of her head: "For 48 hours straight now an F-15 fighter has been circling over Boston. I woke last night several times and listened. It has the compressed sound of distant rage. . . . That thing carries missiles. It carries bombs. This is a major metropolitan area. If one or two of the terrorists are cornered in a pizzeria on Newbury Street, will the plane swoop down and drop its payload?"

- In Florida, Hiaasen, a columnist with the Miami Herald who is the author of several comic thrillers, is overwhelmed: "Oh, we can talk about ancient feuds and holy wars, but it all boils down to slaughter -- wanton, cowardly, gleeful slaughter. No reasonable explanation exists, and that's probably what we ought to tell our children -- the awful truth. Level with them."

- From Ground Zero, Rick Bragg, New York Times national correspondent and memoirist, writes of the firemen trying to find survivors in the rubble: "Every day is worse, not better. `The smell of rotting flesh is beginning to take over,' [a firefighter] said."

- And former Chicagoan Mitchard, author of "The Deep End of the Ocean," worries about her 18-year-old son being called for military service. So she suggests that, if war comes, middle-aged parents, like her, should be drafted instead of teenagers and young adults: "Let us be the ones to fight. Thirtysomethings and fortysomethings . . . I don't believe it is my son's duty to protect my future, rather the reverse. . . . If indeed we all must play the patriot game, let those who have strived and built and created the stakes that are now so high play for them, if they wish. As we say here in Wisconsin, let's salvage the seed corn."

Hazelgrove and colleagues hope to attract such big-name writers as Jane Hamilton, Studs Terkel and Frank McCourt to participate in the book, tentatively titled "For Our Fallen Countrymen."

Other established writers who would like to take part can e-mail Hazelgrove at novelist52@hotmail.com. So far, nearly 40 essays have been contributed. Ultimately, Hazelgrove says, he'd like to include 50 to 100, each essay running from 1,000 to 2,500 words.

One purpose of the volume, he says, is to record, in all their raw pain, the initial reactions of Americans to the tragedies. "By getting to them now, we can freeze, for all time, what it was like," he says.

Dealing with the horrors

There's another reason, as well. Writing about the attacks gives the writers a chance to deal with the nightmares, demons and horrors afflicting their spirits. "It's something that sits on your chest," he says. "You want to exorcise it, but also make sense of it."

Novelist Sharon Zukowski, who was at work four blocks from the World Trade Center when the attacks occurred, acknowledges this at the end of her long essay recounting the week after the tragedy.

"I walk into my house and slug down a glass of wine," she writes. "Then I take a shower to wash the smoke and grit away, and slug down more wine. The sorrow is never washed away. It fades and then springs back when least expected, but sorrow has a sneaky way of doing that. . . . I am so thankful that I can write about this."

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