Let the Great World Spin

It is kind of ironic that I was reading this book this week just before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  Let the Great World Spin is a book set in 1974 and opens with the story of people looking up at the World Trade Center Towers watching a man who is walking a wire from one tower to the other.  While the book is fictional, the opener is based on the real life feat of funambulist Philippe Petit.  The book is one that pulls you in from the beginning.  I could totally feel myself holding my breathe like a spectator on the street waiting to see if the man would fall off the wire.

It made me think of all the people on the streets of New York ten years ago, who were looking up at the towers with disbelief as they burned and later crashed to the ground.  I remember going to work on that Tuesday morning and learning that one of the towers had been hit by a plane.  Then, laying on the couch in our basement apartment at Georgia Tech and watching hours of coverage on the television.  For days I watched the coverage, hoping that survivors would be pulled from the rubble.  It was so awful that I really couldn't wrap my head around it.  I just kept watching and hoping, but there were so few rescues after that first day. 

The book is about rescue in a lot of ways. A group of lost souls - some who knew they were and others who didn't realize it.  It is one of those books that tells the story of several characters and the stories end up intersecting in a variety of ways.  It could be a little predictable, but the writing is very engaging and paints such a detailed picture that you can really see the details of 1974 New York City.