Journalist Mitchell Zuckoff to Discuss 9/11, His Reporting Career and His New Book at the 9/11 Memorial Museum

On the morning of September 11, 2001, bestselling author and journalist Mitchell Zuckoff was on book leave from the Boston Globe when his editor called: airplanes had struck the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack. Both planes that hit the towers had taken off from Boston’s Logan Airport.

Zuckoff rushed to the newsroom. He wrote the lead story that appeared on page one of the Globe the following day. For months after, Zuckoff wrote about the attacks, the perpetrators, the victims and their families. So began an abiding commitment to the true story of what happened on that day.

After years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff published “Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11,” a comprehensive nonfiction narrative of the day. On Tuesday, April 30, Zuckoff will discuss his experience reporting on 9/11 and the process of writing “Fall and Rise” in a public program and book launch at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

In "Fall and Rise," Zuckoff weaves together multiple strands of what happened in New York, at the Pentagon, in Shanksville, Pa., and among military responders, into a mesmerizing, minute-by-minute account. “Fall and Rise” is filled with stories of the lost and the saved, giving voice to the people most poignantly affected by the events of 9/11.

Among them include an out-of-work actor trapped in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 who decided to take action; a veteran stuck in the inferno in the Pentagon; one of the first firefighters on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; an unlikely pair of strangers in the South Tower who resolved to save each other; a crew of firefighters who refused to leave an injured woman behind; and an Army officer who hoisted a civilian onto her back to crawl through flames. In Zuckoff, the survivors and the families of the victims found a compassionate and empathetic landing place for their sacred stories.

Tickets to this program are still available, so reserve them today.

By Ruth Dewa Ayu, Assistant Director of Public Programs, 9/11 Memorial Museum