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New York native Don DeLillo confronts his city's most horrendous tragedy. Those expecting the interwoven subterfuge and bravado sentence making of Underworld or White Noise might be disappointed. This is a stark, intensely personal story that provokes some equally impassioned__and sharply divided__responses. From the reviews, it is clear that the novel is either the best 9/11 book yet written, or a complete failure. Those championing the latter view claim that other firsthand accounts of the tra

New York native Don DeLillo confronts his city's most horrendous tragedy. Those expecting the interwoven subterfuge and bravado sentence making of Underworld or White Noise might be disappointed. This is a stark, intensely personal story that provokes some equally impassioned__and sharply divided__responses. From the reviews, it is clear that the novel is either the best 9/11 book yet written, or a complete failure. Those championing the latter view claim that other firsthand accounts of the tragedy far overmatch the novel. But the book's supporters find that DeLillo's restrained prose and close focus are the perfect lenses through which to view the tragedy. Six years later, it's still hard to discern whether critics' responses have more to do with the event than the book at hand.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.