“Falling Man” by Don DeLillo is a fictional account of the direct effects of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers. DeLillo wants to present a reasonable depiction of how the victims of the attacks respond after they survive.

DeLillo’s main character is Keith, who walks down the darkened steps of the struck north tower and then, after it fell, comes out of the dust cloud like a wraith. He wanders, truly thunderstruck, until, helped by anonymous people, he reaches the apartment of his ex-wife, Lianne.

Keith and his family are a paradigm for all of the victims of the twin towers attack. The dust and glass can be picked out of his flesh, but the violence is much slower to emerge. Lianne feels threatened by Islam everywhere. She has a fight with a neighbor playing Mideastern music too loud. She sees shadowy twin towers in the art of her mother’s apartment.

Their son, Justin, says little but looks for Bill Lawton with friends, scanning the skies with binoculars for more planes. His parents only later realize the kids are looking for bin Laden. Lianne’s mother breaks off her 20-year affair with an art dealer from Germany who may have been connected with leftist activities a long time ago.

DeLillo intermingles all of these facets of his narrative in short vignettes. One must be careful of who is thinking when. We also meet one of the hijackers in preparation for the attack. He is imagined by DeLillo as asking himself, “Does a man have to kill himself to accomplish something in the world?” Following Mohammed Atta, his answer is yes.

Keith throughout the book wanders after his survival. Lianne has taken him back, both as security for her and their son but also as a means to save Keith. He brought someone else’s briefcase out of the inferno by chance and, after finding the owner, has a brief affair with her. He becomes a professional poker player, and eventually, through the twisted wreckage of buildings and lives, he and Lianne come to reconciliation.

Lianne has her own terrors. Her mother is slowly dying, as is the 20-year-old love affair. Lianne’s memory is haunted by the death of her father who had shot himself when he learned he was suffering from senile dementia. And Lianne sees the Falling Man, someone who is doing street art, hanging from the elevated train or a catwalk with a harness, pretending to be a victim of the towers falling 100 stories to the ground.

DeLillo is exploring that fragile interface between those who were in the city and who suffered the fall physically and we who only watched the events on TV. Both spectators have become disassociated, New Yorkers who were too close and we who were far away. We do not know how to react.

Both Lianne and Keith have incidents where they lash out in unpremeditated fury. I am not sure how true these scenes may be. Was there more violence in New York City after the twin towers fell than before? Does it matter?

I also wonder if DeLillo is playing as a Miltonic god, throwing Lucifer out of the towers, “hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky / With hideous ruin and combustion.” Lucifer may be the ultimate falling man, and if he is, then what are we who survived, and when during the fall does Lucifer become Satan.

God is also part of DeLillo’s argument in the book. The question is age-old. If there is a merciful god, why did he allow this to happen? That question. When the planes hit, “God’s name [is] on the tongues of killers and victims both,” DeLillo says. I have to ask, as the author implies, are the victims and killers crying to the same God?

For Keith and Lianne and their family, their belief must be in each other. Keith calls regularly from Las Vegas in between poker games. Lianne continues her sessions with a writing group of people with oncoming dementia. Justin stops looking for Bill Lawton. Lianne’s mother dies, and her lover goes back to Germany forever.

Some survive. Some do not. The Hanging Man who depicted the catastrophe singly all over New York City does not. Mohammed Atta does not. Thousands do not. Keith and Lianne do, as do millions who experienced the attack viscerally in New York City and throughout the U.S.

At the end of the book, DeLillo takes us back into the tower at the moment of the attack. We follow the hijacker to his immolation and Keith down the stairs. Amidst all of the flames and falling ceilings, Keith tries to help friends and co-workers maimed and dead. He then navigates the stairs, briefcase in hand, bringing a bit of the building with him, and he ultimately finds redemption at the bottom.

Ralph Mohr taught English and Latin at Marshfield High School for 31 years. He welcomes comments and suggestions regarding the column at rmohr1565@charter.net.