After 9/11: One Girl's Journey Through Darkness to a New Beginning
“You are a herald for your generation.. Thank you for using your voice to help us make sense of that dark day, and forge a new beginning.”—Hillary Clinton
Helaina Hovitz was twelve years old and in middle school three blocks away when the World Trade Center was attacked. Her 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 navigates a changed New York City while spiraling into chaos.
The events and experiences that are now common knowledge to everyone were a very real part of Helaina’s life and are still as vivid in her memory today: the sickening thud of falling bodies hitting cars, the crumbling towers, running for her life as she tried to get home, her universe literally engulfed in a cloud. Hundreds, including Helaina, were stranded in the neighborhood, also just blocks from the towers, without phones or electricity or anyone to help. For fear of subsequent attacks, not to mention the toxic substances in the air, everyone was urged to stay inside their debris-filled apartments.
Anyone who has survived a horrific event knows that just because a body remains in motion does not mean everything will simply "go back to normal.” The chemistry of the brain and the body changes, impacting our relationships, our choices, and how we experience the world around us. Yet, we rarely find out what actually happens to people as they try to move on from a life-threatening experience, especially children and young adults, who are just beginning to develop an understanding of the world around them.
It would take Helaina more than a decade to overcome the PTSD that went misdiagnosed and mistreated for so many years as she battled a condition that became increasingly complex and dangerous over time.
By including the experience of her former classmates over the course of a decade, her memoir serves as a powerful portrait of a generation of children forever shaped by aftermath, revealing how trauma doesn't simply fade with time, but evolves alongside the people forced to carry it.
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'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“