Falling Man was published by Scribner in 2007 — six years after the attacks of September 11, 2001 — and represents DeLillo’s most direct engagement with the event that his entire body of work seemed to have anticipated. From the terrorist consciousness in Mao II (1991) to the systemic collapse anxiety of Underworld (1997), DeLillo had been writing about the American vulnerability that September 11th confirmed. When the novel finally came, it was deliberately spare, deliberately quiet, deliberately anti-epic.
The Novel
Keith Neudecker walks out of the World Trade Center’s dust cloud carrying someone else’s briefcase. He goes not to a hospital but to his estranged wife Lianne’s apartment — drawn by some instinct toward the domestic as a shelter from the incomprehensible. The novel follows Keith, Lianne, and their young son Justin through the months and years after the attacks, tracing the slow-motion aftershocks in their marriage, their psychology, and their capacity to make meaning from what happened.
DeLillo refuses the grand gesture. There are no heroic rescues, no patriotic speeches, no cathartic confrontations. Instead: a man who cannot stop playing poker, a woman who runs a writing group for Alzheimer’s patients, a boy who stares out the window with binoculars searching for “Bill Lawton” (his childish mishearing of “Bin Laden”). The novel insists that the true effects of trauma are not dramatic but incremental — the slow alteration of everyday consciousness.
Interspersed with the Neudecker chapters are brief sections narrated from the perspective of Hammad, one of the hijackers, in the months before the attack. These sections — written with rigorous empathy that never becomes sympathy — represent DeLillo’s most controversial artistic decision: to enter the terrorist mind and render it as recognizably human.
The Falling Man
The novel’s title refers to a performance artist who appears around New York in the months after the attacks, suspending himself from buildings in the posture of the famous “Falling Man” photograph — the unidentified man falling headfirst from the North Tower. The performer forces witnesses to confront an image that official culture was already suppressing. His appearances punctuate the novel like eruptions of the real into the careful unreality of post-traumatic life.
DeLillo and September 11th
DeLillo had written a brief, extraordinary essay about the attacks — “In the Ruins of the Future” — for Harper’s in December 2001. The essay argued that the attacks represented the counternarrative to globalization’s triumphalism — “the power of American culture to penetrate every wall, home, life, and mind.” The novel extends this analysis while refusing to explain or allegorize. It presents the event’s aftermath as it was actually experienced: bewildering, quotidian, and resistant to meaning.
Publication History
The first edition was published by Scribner, New York, in May 2007. First printings are identified by:
- Scribner imprint on title page
- “First Scribner hardcover edition” stated
- Number line including “1”
- Cloth binding with dust jacket
Reviews were divided. Some critics praised the novel’s restraint and formal sophistication; others found it emotionally withholding, as if DeLillo’s characteristic coolness was insufficient for his subject.
Collecting Falling Man
First edition (Scribner, 2007): Fine copies in dust jacket bring $30–$100. The novel had a large first printing.
Signed copies bring $100–$300. DeLillo made limited appearances.
As DeLillo’s September 11th novel, it has permanent historical significance regardless of its standing in his oeuvre. Its reputation may grow as critical distance allows reassessment.