Bonnin- Falling Man

The novel “Falling Man” begins and ends with Keith’s experience of the hellish aftermath of the September 11^th terrorist attack of the World Trade Center. At the beginning of the novel it is evident that Keith is experiencing the attack or the collapse at a very personal level. However, the reader later discovers that the narrative at the beginning omitted information that was key to our understanding of Keith’s experience and behavior following the attack. As time progresses, Keith’s character evolves and one could even argue that he finally comes alive. The ending is not only significant in that Keith finally acknowledges his friend’s death and that of others around him at Ground Zero, but it is also a redemption of the beginning because he can finally walk away from the collapse as a new man.

Keith was working at the site at the time of the attacks and was one of the fortunate men and women who were able to safely exit the towers before they collapsed. Keith took a briefcase from the tower that led him to another survivor called Florence. When they met he told her that he had once wanted to be an actor, but that he had never gotten past being an acting student. Ironically enough the novel presents Keith as a man who acted out his entire life. He settled for a life and job that did not suit him, and following September 11 he went back to poorly acting as a father and as a husband. In the novel there is an interesting interplay between Keith’s life and that of the trained actor who carries out the “falling man” stunt: These men, both educated actors, fall in their acts.

In Keith’s rendition of the husband there are infidelity, distance and lies. The actor’s fall, on the other hand, is seen by Lianne as a “falling angel and his beauty was horrific” (DeLillo 231). Soon after the actor’s death Lianne decides she is ready to leave Keith and go back to the way things were before the towers collapsed. In this way the actor’s death signifies the death of Keith as an actor and his simultaneous rebirth as his true self. He is set free from all attachments. He was a professional poker player constantly traveling, but constrained by his emotional baggage and relationship to Lianne. When the acting ended he is finally able to live out his life.

In the end the author brings the reader back to September 11 and to Keith’s experience. One finally sees that his grief also stemmed from the loss of his close friend Rumsey who he was unable to save. It is as if Keith was revisiting his memory of the incident and he is finally able to stop denying that his “world” did end. He acknowledged the carnage around him and can finally liberate himself from that day. Keith saw the same shirt falling from the sky at the beginning and at the end. However, at the end he can finally accept that it was not a shirt it was a human who died: “Then he saw a shirt come down of the sky. He walked and saw it fall, arms waving like nothing in this life” (DeLillo 256).