NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” –Jon Meacham “Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.” –The Wall Street Journal “Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing … with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” –Katie Couric
The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001–a panoramic narrative woven from voices on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma.
Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower to The 9/11 Commission Report. But one perspective has been missing up to this point–a 360-degree account of the day told through firsthand.
Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived–in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, he paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet.
Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker under the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid.
More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from trying to rescue their colleagues.
At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.
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This is history at its most immediate and moving. In The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff has crafted an enduring portrait of a deadly and consequential day, a day that has shaped all other subsequent days in America for nearly two decades. A marvelous and memorable book.
A riveting and important account of the events of 9-11.
This is not my normal reading genre. I enjoy light, occasionally funny, and always happily-ever-after stories. I read, mainly, to escape.
But sometimes it’s important to read to understand, and I think Graff’s book accomplishes exactly that. Not the WHY of 9-11. I don’t think there is any complete understanding of that, but the details, the many heroes, the sequence of events.
The book is a compilation of interviews, texts, phone transcripts, etc, and there’s very little of the author here at all — which is nothing short of amazing. I can’t imagine going through so much data, nearly 20 years after the event, and putting together a succinct (though at times very painful) re-telling. I started reading for the information, but I kept reading because the pages are full of everyday heroes, people who did the unimaginable, people who were selfless in the extreme.
If I were still teaching college English, I think I’d like to require this of my students. As for my readers, I can only highly recommend.
Like many people, I remember where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was glued to the TV for days afterwards and I cried with the rest of the nation. Since then, I’ve read many books and articles about that day but nothing that touched me like this book. The author did considerable research and got thousands of oral history stories from people who were there – the workers and firefighters at the Towers, the families who waited for their loved ones to come home, the people at the Pentagon as well as Pennsylvania and what was going on in the White House as the continuing news brought more horror and sometimes confusion to our leaders.
“All told, 2,606 people died at the World Trade Center in New York City and another 125 at the Pentagon; 206 people died when their planes were hijacked and crashed into the centers of America’s financial and military power; another 40 died in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as brave passengers and crew wrestled control of United flight 93 back from the hijackers.” (p xix)
More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son working in the North Tower, caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try to rescue their colleagues.
This book was very emotional for me to read and I had to put it down many times. I knew the story…I knew the ending but hearing about it in the words of the people who were there made it even more difficult to read. I am so glad that I read it and think it will be a valuable book for people who were too young to remember 9/11 to understand the impact that it had on America and the entire world.
I listened to the audiobook version and it was a work of art, if a book on this topic can be called that. It is not for the faint of heart, and while I recommend this book highly, I also do that with the caveat that it will be incredibly triggering for many people. Please proceed with caution. The format of the book is brilliant and the content included is haunting and riveting and inspiring and heartbreaking. I gasped. I cried. I took breaks. It was exhausting in a way that no other book I have read has been, but I couldn’t stop listening. I am forever thankful for the insight and education this book provided. It was an incredible combination of first-person story-telling and historical account.
This is a must read/listen! It gives such a detailed and vivid outline of the events of 9/11. The audiobook is incredible and the stories are equally incredible and devastating.
9/11 is the big terrorism incident of my life and seeing the lasting effects it has had on the country is interesting. Most of my life has been after this day and I won’t even know all the changes this event has brought forth because all changes will seem like the norm, rather than the outlier.
This book gives a look at the events from the perspective of the people on the ground, of the people who were actually there when it happened. I learned more about what happened than I ever had in school. I found the narrative illuminating and heartbreaking. This changed what I thought I knew and made me look at this event differently. I had no idea that people didn’t know the first plane crash was intentional. People had gone back to their normal lives and didn’t think too much about it until the second plane.
Another thing that I found interesting was the leaders of the country were just as clueless as everyone else and people were basically learning about this event and potential causes from the media, rather than anything official.
I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about this unforgettable act of terrorism on US soil. It is easily read, but the subject matter might make it difficult for some.
I think all Americans, and even some non-Americans, remember where they were on 9/11/2001 when the attacks occured. I was a young pediatric nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital. We went into total lock down becuase of our closeness to Washington DC. We spent that day shielding the children from the TV sets and keep some normality, as well as catch glimpses of what was going on.
I grew up right outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and have had a chance to visit the memorial they have there. We have visited the memorial in New York City. We never forget. What happened that day is never far from my mind. And I was only distantly involved. I cannot imagine for all of those directly involved – what it must be like for them.
This book is a recount of hundreds of voices and their stories from that day. Victims, family members, fireman, policeman, government officals, on and on. It tells the story from the night before to years after the attack. The author pieces together the attack from different angles giving us an insider view we have not had before.
The book is very well done. As all stories I read or watch about 9/11, I am tense in the reliving what it was like to witness something like that. This story gave me new information I had not had before from first hand accounts of those who were there that day. I gained a better understanding of what happened – especially from the view of those in the government. The author fills the pages with personal stories filled with emotion, and loss, and trauma like I have never read before.
It is a fantastic read. I am so glad I read it. Please consider putting it high on your TBR list.
Although many years have passed since 9/11, this book, told with such immediacy, brings so vividly back to mind the shock of that day, and why it continues to shape the tragic history that has followed.
The Only Plane in the Sky is a stunning and important work — chilling, heartbreaking — and I cannot stop thinking about it. To hear the voices of those who survived, and those who did not, is so moving and powerful. I learned so much, and am so thankful for this book.
Raw, emotional, and intense, this jaw-dropping narrative, composed entirely of firsthand accounts, strips away the politics that have grown up around 9/11 and have clouded its brutal impact on the American psyche. Rarely is history delivered with such vivid sensory detail. Garrett Graff’s meticulous reporting transported us, with visceral clarity, back to those horrifying hours that changed us all forever.
Garrett Graff has deftly used oral history to take us into the one of the most horrific and consequential moments in American history, in a book that will be particularly important for those readers too young to remember September 11, 2001.
9/11 is one of the hinge events of American history and Garrett Graff adds considerably to our knowledge of the horrors and the heroism that characterized that terrible day. The Only Plane in the Sky is a deeply researched and authoritative account.
A truly riveting book, at once tragic and thrilling, and a testament to the power of memory.