After 9/11: One Girl's Journey Through Darkness to a New Beginning
Twelve-year-old Helaina was in middle school just blocks from the World Trade Center when the attacks of September 11 began. Instead of running away from the devastation, she ran further into it in a desperate attempt to reach her grandparents. Later that day, Helaina and hundreds of her neighbors were stranded in Lower Manhattan without phones, electricity, or anyone to help.
In the days and weeks that followed, the neighborhood remained under constant threat, with National Guard patrols, bomb scares, emergency evacuations, and the lingering fear that another attack could come at any moment.
Helaina's memoir is a deeply personal coming-of-age story about growing up in a changed New York City while navigating misdiagnosed and mistreated post-traumatic stress disorder. It also chronicles the experiences of her classmates over the course of a decade. After 9/11 is as a powerful portrait of a generation of children growing up in the aftermath of America's darkest day—and, for one young woman, it is the story of a survivor found the courage to create a new beginning after living in the aftermath of the end.
I am grateful to you for the courage it took to share your personal story. Thank you for using your voice to help us all make sense of that dark day, and forge that new beginning. You are a herald for your generation. — Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a letter to Helaina
“Helaina’s engrossing narrative begins in the shadow of the twin towers with her as a backpack-toting twelve-year old and plays out over the next fifteen years in dramatic detail. This impressive debut is both deeply evocative and intensely personal.” — The New Yorker
“Helaina Hovitz has written a powerful memoir of the overlooked personal trauma nearby kids experienced while living in the shadow of so much destruction. Her story, and the stories of her friends and classmates, are a crucial part of the nation’s 9/11 history." —The Atlantic
“Helaina's story is an example of how trauma and addiction become part of a life, not someone’s entire life, and how we can change that course if we are willing to work for it. By combining her own personal experience with interviews and journalistic research, Hovitz shows us what it is like to finally move towards the light after so many years of darkness.” — Maia Szalavitz, TIME
"Hovitz shows us, for the first time, what it was like for families in New York City who suddenly had to live like other war refugees, with no idea where their loved ones were or when the next attack might come. After 9/11 is a moving and remarkable testament to a time that changed our country, told beautifully by a young woman who never gave up hope that she could reclaim her life, no matter how grim things looked.”— Sean Elder, Newsweek
Inspirational, courageous and beautifully told. After 9/11 is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.” — PEOPLE magazine
Helaina Hovitz has written that rare kind of book that combines a poetic sensitivity to detail, the stark emotion of memory and a searing glimpse of the human spirit as it suffers, struggles and learns to heal. In her story are the seeds of hope for anyone who has survived trauma and seeks to truly live again.”— Michele Rosenthal
“Hovitz’s memoir is distinctive, and larger than her own experience. Through her engaging and beautifully crafted narrative, we see the lasting scars that have lingered on so many of us.”— Read it Forward“