… Windows on the World, for all its posturing and glibness and rote tear-jerking, is so strangely moving. How exhilarating, to hear from that man, the man on the make, the seasoned nihilist with a track record of success in pursuing the playboy's delights, the truth of 9/11: that in suffering and death we are all made equal; and the only thing we deserve to be remembered for is how well and generously we loved.
— The New York Times
"You know how it ends: everybody dies." Thus begins Beigbeder's gripping apocalyptic novel, which takes place on September 11, 2001-the date on which New York realtor Carthew Yorston has taken his seven- and nine-year-old sons for a long-promised breakfast at the eponymous eatery atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Alternating with Smith's narration is the voice of Beigbeder himself-or a thinly disguised version of the French author-musing about the tragedy one year later over his own breakfast in Le Ciel de Paris, on the 56th floor of the Tour Montparnasse, the tallest building in Paris. Each chapter of the novel represents one minute on that fateful morning, from 8:30 to 10:29; nearly all are less than three pages, and several prove startling in their brevity ("In the Windows, the few remaining survivors intone Irving Berlin's `God Bless America' (1939)"). Both men riff on everything from trivia to politics and make often poignant philosophical observations. Abundant doses of gallows humor at once add levity and underscore the drama. Yorston's overheard snatches of fatuous cell-phone conversations, for example, would be funny in another context, while the enforced exit of a cigar-smoking guest at Windows on the World "thereby proves that a cigar can save your life." Though some readers may be put off by this novel's subject matter, Beigbeder invests his narrators with such profound humanity that the book is far more than a litany of catastrophe: it is, on all levels, a stunning read. (Mar.) FYI: Beigbeder's novel debuted at #2 on the French bestseller list. The English edition is slightly different from the French original because, Beigbeder writes in an Author's Note, when he reread the book in English, "there were, I felt, moments when it was starker and perhaps more likely to wound than I intended." Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
This French novel about 9/11 has enjoyed great popular and critical success in Europe, and one can readily see why. It is a powerful, earnest, and in some ways playful novel that successfully blends tragedy and pathos with an irresistible exuberance for life. The novel has two interlocking narratives: one focuses on the tragedy itself, following the deadly struggles of a father and his two young sons trapped in Windows on the World, the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center; the other functions like the chorus of a postmodern Greek tragedy. Here, a Parisian writer sitting in a restaurant two years after the attacks speaks directly to us about 9/11, the novel he is writing about this tragedy, and history and human suffering. Beigbeder (99 Francs) thus provides poignant philosophical commentary while suggesting-tactfully and respectfully-that life goes on even in the wake of something so horrific. A brave, intriguing, emotionally resonant work; enthusiastically recommended for all libraries.-Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
From the restaurant that once had the best views in town, 9/11 is witnessed minute by agonizing minute. Beigbeder (99 Francs, not reviewed) isn't afraid of taking a risk: a Frenchman writing about a subject incredibly sensitive to Americans, and a subject he has no firsthand knowledge of. Fortunately, he's got plenty of ideas and not much by way of axes to grind. The novel (it appeared in France in 2003) comes at its story from a couple of angles. The first, the famous restaurant just minutes before the first plane hits, is the obvious attention-grabber. We relive the event through the eyes of some of the victims, most importantly a father who'd brought his two boys up for breakfast. Beigbeder also introduces himself (or a barely concealed facsimile) as a wandering French author in the present day, trying to wrap his mind around the disaster and mostly coming up only with scattered conjectures and heat 'n' serve theories. The book is heavy with frustration, both on the part of the author, detesting his own ineffectuality, and on the part of the victims, trapped in the restaurant between the burning wreckage of the plane below and the locked rooftop door above. While Beigbeder's own maunderings about the cause and effect of 9/11 do provide for some divertingly ruminative passages-he has no trace of Euro-intelligentsia knee-jerk dislike of America-but, ultimately, the victims here are the most eloquent witnesses. Beigbeder is unafraid to shed light on the more tragically horrifying aspects of the attacks, at least as far as he can imagine them, and there are several moments of pure soul-aching sadness. And in the end, this is a story without answers, but one that takes the worst thathumanity can dish out and faces it down, unflinchingly. Sometimes slight, but always impressive: an important addition to the chorus of heavier, more lifeless tomes on the subject.
