The New York Times Book Review - Clyde Haberman
By design, this narrative of close to 500 pages is not encyclopedic…Rather, [Fall and Rise] derives its power from its focus on individuals in the main unknown to the larger world, who managed to survive the ordeal or who lost their lives simply because they were unlucky. With journalistic rigor, Zuckoff acknowledges what he doesn't know…His language is largely unadorned; then again, embellishment is neither needed nor wanted…Some may ask if this book, covering territory already well traveled, needed to be written. For those who lived through the horror, perhaps not. But a full generation has come of age with no memory of that day. It needs to hear anew what happened, and maybe learn that time, in fact, does not heal all wounds.
Publishers Weekly
★ 03/11/2019
The horror and heroism of 9/11 are brought to life in this panoramic history. Boston University journalism professor Zuckoff, who covered the attacks for the Boston Globe, traces the day’s events through the stories of dozens of people who experienced them: the hijackers as they put the finishing touches on their plot and set it in motion; the hijacked aircrew and passengers stunned by the unfolding nightmare; the air-traffic controllers, FAA officials, and military officers who struggled to piece together what was happening in the skies (Zuckoff shows how miscommunication delayed crucial measures that might have saved lives); workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as they scrambled to escape from the growing infernos; and the firefighters who risked their lives to rescue them. Zuckoff draws skillfully on interviews with survivors, family reminiscences, audio documents (including farewell phone calls from doomed victims), tapes from the cockpit of United Flight 93 where passengers fought to take the plane back from the hijackers, and forlorn notes—one reading “84th floor. West office. 12 people trapped” drifted down from a tower—to flesh out the violence, chaos, and occasional moments of grace. The result is a superb, harrowing retelling of this most dramatic of stories. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Better and more comprehensive than any prior account.... Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.” — John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and author of The Ground Truth
“With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.” — David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon
“The 9/11 book we’ve been waiting for. A terrific storyteller and gifted researcher, Mitchell Zuckoff has rendered that world-changing day on a scale both intimate and monumental. This is narrative history at its very best.” — Cokie Roberts, New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning journalist
“A triumph of great reporting and rigorous research, Fall and Rise by Mitchell Zuckoff recreates the tragic events of September 11, 2001, with harrowing precision and commendable empathy.” — Daniel James Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat
“Both a deconstruction and a reconstruction, Fall and Rise is a definitive, perhaps the definitive, account of a day that will always live in infamy. In this forensic but also literary tour de force, Mitchell Zuckoff has not only created a moving and consequential work; he’s performed a national service.” — Hampton Sides, bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice and On Desperate Ground
“Mitchell Zuckoff’s Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 brings readers back to those harrowing days in 2001 which forever scarred the American psyche and left a wound a mile deep in the heart of our nation. Every page shivers in stark remembrance of New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on those dark days. A masterpiece of historical scholarship!” — Douglas Brinkley, author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
“The horror and heroism of 9/11 are brought to life in this panoramic history. ... The result is a superb, harrowing retelling of this most dramatic of stories.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A meticulously delineated, detailed, graphic history of the events of 9/11 in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. ... Despite the story’s sprawling cast, which could have sabotaged a book by a less-skilled author, Zuckoff ably handles all of the complexities. ... [A]s contemporary history, Fall and Rise is a clear and moving success.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Daniel James Brown
A triumph of great reporting and rigorous research, Fall and Rise by Mitchell Zuckoff recreates the tragic events of September 11, 2001, with harrowing precision and commendable empathy.
Douglas Brinkley
Mitchell Zuckoff’s Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 brings readers back to those harrowing days in 2001 which forever scarred the American psyche and left a wound a mile deep in the heart of our nation. Every page shivers in stark remembrance of New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on those dark days. A masterpiece of historical scholarship!
David Grann
With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.
Hampton Sides
Both a deconstruction and a reconstruction, Fall and Rise is a definitive, perhaps the definitive, account of a day that will always live in infamy. In this forensic but also literary tour de force, Mitchell Zuckoff has not only created a moving and consequential work; he’s performed a national service.
Cokie Roberts
The 9/11 book we’ve been waiting for. A terrific storyteller and gifted researcher, Mitchell Zuckoff has rendered that world-changing day on a scale both intimate and monumental. This is narrative history at its very best.
John Farmer
Better and more comprehensive than any prior account.... Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.
Jan Ramirez
Fall and Rise reads as a compelling jig-saw puzzle: an everyday Tuesday morning abruptly shattered, cleaving our collective memory into a pre and post-September 11, 2001. Mitchell Zuckoff proceeds to reassemble and interlock clusters of those pieces, creating a portrait of fate’s arbitrary operations while exposing the threads of human connectivity at the heart of these convulsive events. The victims, survivors, responders and bereaved relatives central to his narrative are familiar to us, accessible and endearing because we can see ourselves reflected in the mirror of those lives that Zuckoff has restored through rigorous research, sensitive listening and artful storytelling. Infused with empathy, Fall and Rise dignifies not only the web of individuals profiled in his book but all who were violated by the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-02-17
A meticulously delineated, detailed, graphic history of the events of 9/11 in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.
Working at the Boston Globe as an investigative journalist, Zuckoff (Journalism/Boston Univ.; 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi, 2014, etc.) spent months after 9/11 publishing pieces on the tragedy's victims and their families and friends. He decided to revisit the personal sagas so that future generations of readers will fully understand this watershed moment in American history. The author divides the book into three sections: what happened inside the cabins and cockpits of the four hijacked planes; what happened on the ground at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside; and reports on what happened to some of the survivors after 9/11. Zuckoff mostly avoids references to the hijackers' possible motivations as well as speculation on why the government failed to halt the sometimes-amateurish terrorist plot despite multiple warnings from alert sources. The author also eschews lengthy commentary on the massive reduction in civil liberties in the U.S. as governments at all levels implemented drastic policies to halt future terrorist attacks. In each of the three sections, Zuckoff offers a cross-section of widely representative individuals and then builds the relentlessly compelling narrative around those real-life protagonists. Despite the story's sprawling cast, which could have sabotaged a book by a less-skilled author, Zuckoff ably handles all of the complexities. Even readers who might normally balk at reliving 9/11 and its aftermath are quite likely to find the accounts of gruesome deaths, seemingly miraculous survivals, and courageous first responders difficult to set aside for an emotional break. In two appendices, the author provides a "timeline of key events" and a list of "the nearly three thousand names as they appear inscribed in bronze on the 9/11 Memorial in New York."
Zuckoff did not set out to write a feel-good book, and the subject matter is unquestionably depressing at times. Nonetheless, as contemporary history, Fall and Rise is a clear and moving success.
