A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends

by Dennis Smith, Deirdre Smith Narrated by Stephen Hoye, Joyce Bean

Overview

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an occasion that is sure to be observed around the world. But among the memorials, political speeches, and news editorials, the most pressing consideration-and often the most overlooked-is the lives and well-being of the 9/11 first responders, their families, and the victims' families over the past decade.



Dennis Smith, a former firefighter and the author of the bestselling Report from Ground Zero, addresses this important topic in a series of interviews with the heroes and families of those most affected by the tragedy either through feats of bravery in the rescue efforts or heroic bearing up in the face of unimaginable loss. Smith provides an intimate look at a terrible moment in history and its challenging and difficult aftermath, allowing these survivors to share their stories of loss, endurance, and resilience in their own words. A Decade of Hope is an honest and vitally important look at a decade in the lives of those for whom a national tragedy was a devastatingly personal ordeal.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Smith (Report from Ground Zero), a former firefighter, collects 25 moving personal narratives in this significant addition to the literature of September 11. Featuring notable figures such as NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Congressman Peter King alongside rescue workers and victims’ family members and loved ones, Smith’s interviewees offer their experiences of that tragic day, illustrating how the pain and losses are still acutely felt. Smith absents himself from the dialogue, allowing the book’s focus to remain solely on his diverse narrators, whose essays combine to offer a message of surprising hope and renewal: Akiko Takahashi, who lost her father, volunteers at the WTC visitor center, giving tours and sharing her story; Rudy Abad, a former Merrill Lynch analyst who lost his wife, returned to his native Philippines to build a village in her honor; Erin Jackman, whose sister Brooke was killed, became president of a literacy organization, to pass on Brooke’s passion for literature. With restraint and pathos, Smith’s book provides powerful tribute and testimony. (Sept.)

Chicago Tribune

"The stories thus blossom with a kind of ragged, inadvertent poetry-the poetry that grows up naturally around honest and heartfelt words..."

New York Times

"Heart-rending oral histories of World Trade Center survivors and their families."

From the Publisher

"Heart-rending oral histories of World Trade Center survivors and their families." - New York Times

"The stories thus blossom with a kind of ragged, inadvertent poetry-the poetry that grows up naturally around honest and heartfelt words..." - Chicago Tribune

"A stirring tapestry of real-life heroes." - Kirkus Review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169941463
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	09/30/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos