Waiting for the Sky to Fall: The Age of Verticality in American Narrative

Waiting for the Sky to Fall: The Age of Verticality in American Narrative by Ruth Mackay traces the figures of flight, grievous falls, and collapsing towers, all of which haunt American narratives before and after 9/11. Mackay examines how these events prefigure 9/11, exploring the narrative residue left by the "end" of horizontal space-when settlers reached America's Pacific Coast, leaving nowhere westward on the continent to go. She then continues into the aftermath of the fall of the Twi...