Until the Fires Stopped Burning

August 8, 2011
Strozier, the director for the Center of Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, collects interviews with individuals inside the towers as well as those who watched the events unfold from a distance, from other boroughs, or from around the world. As the first disaster of its kind broadcast live across the globe, Strozier argues that the event was “immediately and repeatedly played back with more and deepening commentary,” an unprecedented presentation by the media that led to different responses depending on the viewers’ proximity to Ground Zero. His research is based on analyzing subjects’ interviews, and consequently, the book feels more like a survey—accessible and anecdotal if cursory. Readers will find the analysis more provocative than satisfying—such compelling sections as one on the language of traumatic memory are too summarily and swiftly handled. Still, the brisk treatment and somewhat repetitive presentation are more than compensated by the breadth of new information on how citizens experienced and psychologically processed the day.

July 15, 2011

Psychoanalyst Strozier (History/John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst, 2001, etc.) assembles a scattershot account of 9/11 and its social significance, the release of which is timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

The book draws on interviews with those who witnessed the events of 9/11 firsthand, the author's own account of these events and reported statistics about the physical destruction and environmental damage wrought by the disaster. Many books have been written about 9/11, and many have incorporated the accounts of eyewitnesses. Strozier's book theoretically provides the added benefit of an experienced psychoanalyst's interpretation and analysis of such accounts. Unfortunately, the author's conclusions are generally less valuable and insightful than they are obvious—9/11 tapped into people's fears of apocalyptic nuclear disaster; 9/11 was more traumatic for New Yorkers than it was for Iowans—or irrelevant (Strozier lengthily chronicles his feelings about his son's stalled career as a chef). Further, the prose is jargon-heavy and often feels forced—e.g., "My discussion of the traumatic meanings of 9/11 in this context of the zones of sadness does not try formally to locate my analysis in the academic or psychoanalytic literature on trauma." Strozier watched the events of 9/11 unfold from the relative safety of Greenwich Village, and he did not lose anyone with whom he was close. Despite his repeatedly asserted desire to show sensitivity toward those who suffered more than he, readers may find it difficult not to find his book self-indulgent.

Slapdash and unilluminating.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2011
As he watched the towers collapse on 9/11, Strozier felt that it was his mission to study this disaster. A history professor and director of the Center on Terrorism at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, Strozier conducted extensive and emotionally intense interviews with people whose names he conceals about their horrifying 9/11 experiences, their lives during the following 100 days that reshaped America, and the tumultuous years that followed. Strozier includes his own story and provides cogent insights into the radical confusion common to survivors, the systematization of the handling of the remains, the many improvised mourning rituals, and the toxic-dust-borne health crisis. He also demarcates and explores zones of sadness rippling out from Ground Zero and analyzes the psychology of the feverish television coverage. Laced with haunting vignettes and disturbing facts, and shaped by psychological acuity and compassion, Strozier's intimate yet comprehensive, visceral, and intellectual dissection of 10 years of trauma, fear, and recovery is full of pain and mystery, radiance and strength.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)