And the War Came: An Accidental Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, Emotional, Deeply Understanding
Review: 9/11 is one of those days that we all remember, I was in my office about 35 miles from the World Trade Center. Our controllers husband was on the 106th floor of one of the buildings -- they found him about 11 days later. There were a lot of stories that I remember. But I never thought to write them down and then to compile them into a book.

David Wyatt did. He noted his thoughts, his observations of other people and discussions. He has combined these into an awesome tale. It is not a tale of the heroic. It is not a politically motivated diatribe dripping with hatred like Fahrenheit 9/11. Somewhat autobiographical, this book is also a reasoned yet emotional and reflective essay on the way our world changed on 9/11.

I have the feeling that this book is too emotional, too thoughtful to be the all time best seller on the incident. I also have the feeling that when many of the other books have faded away this one will remain.

Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read!
Review: In a time when memoirs are lining the bookstore shelves like never before, Wyatt's _And The War Came_ emerges as one of those books that you'll read more than once, and then never forget. This is a writer who pays attention, a writer who knows the necessity for words as we navigate through the upheavals-and delights-of our lives. And so with the events of September 11th, Wyatt took to the page, chronicling "the days" that followed:

"The sound of this war feels as if it were reeling straight out of my mind and heart. ... To accept this, to come to savor it, is to agree that Hamlet was right when he said that the readiness is all. But there is no getting ready for what has happened and for what will go on happening to us, no way to manage the soul-bruising overload of feeling and fact or the sheer incommensurability of taking it all in while we continue to live our little lives."

But this "accidental memoir" should not for a second be regarded as merely a book about war; in fact, its understatedness refuses to smack its reader over the head with sentimentality or political agenda, as is so often the case. Wyatt, an accomplished university professor and restaurant owner, bravely gives us, by way of his diary, a candid entry into his "quotidian life," though he resists, quite remarkably, the tendency to be overly reflexive, often letting the words of those around him do the work. Written in the present tense, Wyatt's crisp and incisive prose imparts an energy that endures, just as the past, which he so effortlessly dips in and out of, endures. In reading, I was compelled by how this book, like any good book, is very much alive. In a sense, this memoir speaks to how we are all living in this "Great Good Time"-how we find our bearings, and sometimes our discomfort, in our relationships with others; how we age; how change changes us. But it speaks also to pleasure (food here, for example, carries a lip-licking sensuality) and love-not only romantic love or the love for family and friends, but love for a country, or for something as simple yet grand as "a particular turn in a road, where an entire mountain range swims into view."

This is truly a wondrous book, one that I would whole-heartedly recommend to anyone.


Rating:
Summary: A great book!
Review: The greatest compliment I can give a book is that the writing is honest, because only with honesty can truth be gleaned. David Wyatt's memoir based on the events in his life after 9-11 does an excellent--and honest--job of capturing the contradictory emotions felt by many. But what I found most interesting about his book was his notion that small collisions or accidents between people and their lives often have far-reaching implications. I am glad that I took time to read David Wyatt's memoir--a truly transforming book.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Wyatt has gotten below the slick surface of the politicized 9/11 to the human reality below. Well done!