First published 2023
Bobby McIlvaine died when the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. His death sent his family members spiraling in completely different directions. Each person found their own way to mourn, some conventional, others deeply personal and unusual. Twenty years after that terrible day, Jennifer Senior returns to the McIlvaines as both family friend and seasoned journalist. She examines how their lives have unfolded in the decades since Bobby's death. Senior explores what each family member has become and how they carry their grief. The book reveals grief's messy, complicated nature through one family's long journey. Senior shows how mourning refuses simple explanations or neat timelines. This Pulitzer Prize winning work offers readers an honest look at loss and the many forms recovery can take.
Genres: american-fiction, grief, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, recovery
Setting: New York, Twin Towers
Period: 2001, September 11
80 pages · Paperback · Atlantic Editions
Content warnings: death