After 9/11: One Girl's Journey Through Darkness to a New Beginning
Helaina was twelve years old and in middle school just blocks away when the World Trade Center was attacked. Instead of running out of the war zone, she ran further into it in an attempt to get home to her grandparents. From start to finish, she was under the towers, running for her life. Later that day, she and hundreds of her neighbors were stranded without phones, electricity or anyone to help—the police told everyone that their side of town had been evacuated, but it had not. It had become a war zone.
As one of only a few children to survive such a uniquely devastating and traumatic experience, her story carries both the weight of that day and the strength it took to endure a life forever changed in the wake of it.
Helaina's memoir encapsulates the journey of a girl growing up with PTSD after living through the events firsthand, chronicling its effects on a young girl at the outset of adolescence, following her as she spirals into addiction and rebellion, through loss, chaos, and confusion.
It would take Helaina more than a decade to overcome the PTSD — and subsequent alcohol addiction — that went misdiagnosed and mistreated.
Enduring years of profound darkness taught her to hold onto hope even in the bleakest moments. That journey shaped her path as a journalist, inspiring her to seek out and share stories that uplift, reveal resilience, and illuminate the good that still exists in the world.
In many ways, After 9/11 is the story of a generation growing up in the aftermath of America’s darkest day. And for one young woman, it is the story of a survivor who, after witnessing the end, got to make a new beginning.
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 Hovitz’s first book is a brave, honest, and fast-paced personal account of the ways in which one day can change the course of our lives forever. Her story is an example of how trauma and addiction become part of a life, not someone’s entire life, and how we can take the wheel and 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“