Gail Sheehy

Middletown, America: One Town's Passage from Trauma to Hope Gail Sheehy

Publisher Marketing: Fifty people never came home to Middletown, New Jersey, after September 11th. Wall Street fathers, young Port Authority police, single working moms, the beloved coach of the championship girls traveling basketball team. Three toddlers in one church pre-school lost their daddies. Dozens of widows, young and beautiful girls in their 20s and 30s, some still nursing newborns, watched their dreams literally go up in smoke in that amphitheater of death across the river. Gail Sheehy traveled to Middletown shortly after the disaster and began in-depth interviews with many of the bereaved. "Middletown, America" was written as the year progressed, following parallel and intertwining stories of selected individuals and their families. A mother who was doubly bereft when she lost her only son as he tried to fill the shoes of her absentee husband; the sole survivor in an office of 67 people who escaped the 88th floor of Tower 2 seconds before the floor was decimated. Here are the fire-fighters, rescue workers and front-line public health volunteers, now training to be soldiers in this new war. Of equal importance, however, is the way these very real individuals dealt with this disaster and the trauma that followed. "Middletown, America" is also a story of recovery and of the ways people finally learn to deal with seemingly insurmountable grief and an incomprehensible physical and financial disaster. Review Citations: New York Times 07/17/2005 pg. 24 (EAN 9780375761010, Paperback) Library Journal 04/15/2004 pg. 148 (EAN 9781593552275, Compact Disc) Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2003 pg. 92 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Booklist 07/01/2003 pg. 1847 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2003 pg. 1008 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Booklist 08/01/2003 pg. 1923 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Vanity Fair 09/01/2003 pg. 182 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 08/11/2003 pg. 271 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Library Journal 09/15/2003 pg. 79 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) - *Starred Review New York Times 09/21/2003 pg. 9 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) New York Times 12/07/2003 pg. 76 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Choice 04/01/2004 pg. 1558 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Library Journal 05/01/2003 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Wilson Public Library Catalog 01/01/2004 pg. 992 (EAN 9780375508622, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Sheehy, Gail Gail Sheehy is the author of the landmark book Passages and the number one bestseller The Silent Passage. Most recently, she published Hilary's Choice. She is married to publisher and editor Clay Felker and lives in Berkeley, California, and Long Island, New York.