Synopses & Reviews
Poignant and personal remembrances, celebrating the lives of the World Trade Center victims.Few aspects of The New York Times's coverage of September 11 and of all that has followed have attracted as much comment as "Portraits of Grief." A page or two buried deep in the B section every day for 15 weeks, the series profiled the lives lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center and has become a story in itself, becoming required reading for many, the world over.
Beginning on Sept. 14, a half-dozen Times reporters began working from a stack of 100 missing person fliers collected from points around the World Trade Center site. They crafted profiles--stories containing short but signature details of the lives they strove to present. These portraits transcend race, class, and gender lines and tell of the old and the young, praising their individuality while at the same time cutting through their differences to capture the poignancy of their shared similarity: life cut short in an American tragedy. The stories have become a source of connection and consolation, a focus for the sorrow of readers both reeling from disbelief and searching for support. To paraphrase "Portraits" reporter Charlie LeDuff, there's more than one Ground Zero--there are thousands of Ground Zeros. Portraits: 9/11/01, a collection of the over 1,800 profiles published in the Times, helps us visit them all.
Review
“Extraordinary . . . wonderful snapshots, full of tiny telling details. The sweetness of these severed lives is overpowering.” —
Los Angeles Times
“In a story producing great journalism, none has been more exceptional than the New York Timess ‘Portraits of Grief. They are profoundly moving.” —The Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
Poignant and personal remembrances, celebrating the lives of the World Trade Center victims.
Few aspects of The New York Times's coverage of September 11 and of all that has followed have attracted as much comment as "Portraits of Grief." A page or two buried deep in the B section every day for 15 weeks, the series profiled the lives lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center and has become a story in itself, becoming required reading for many, the world over. Beginning on Sept. 14, a half-dozen Times reporters began working from a stack of 100 missing person fliers collected from points around the World Trade Center site. They crafted profiles--stories containing short but signature details of the lives they strove to present. These portraits transcend race, class, and gender lines and tell of the old and the young, praising their individuality while at the same time cutting through their differences to capture the poignancy of their shared similarity: life cut short in an American tragedy. The stories have become a source of connection and consolation, a focus for the sorrow of readers both reeling from disbelief and searching for support. To paraphrase "Portraits" reporter Charlie LeDuff, there's more than one Ground Zero--there are thousands of Ground Zeros. Portraits: 9/11/01, a collection of the over 1,800 profiles published in the Times, helps us visit them all.
Synopsis
A new edition that now includes the complete New York Times profiles of those who died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001Few aspects of The New York Timess coverage of September 11 and of all that has followed have attracted as much comment as “Portraits of Grief.” The series profiled the lives lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center and was a story in itself, becoming required reading for many the world over.
Beginning on September 14, 2001, a half-dozen Times reporters began working from a stack of one hundred missing persons fliers collected from points around the World Trade Center. They wrote profiles containing short but signature details of the lives they strove to present. These portraits transcend race, class, age, and gender while capturing the poignancy of the victims similarities: life cut short in an American tragedy. This new edition includes the complete “Portraits of Grief” series with approximately four hundred additional portraits published since February 3, 2002. The profiles have become a source of connection and consolation, a focus for the sorrow of readers both reeling from disbelief and searching for support.
About the Author
Over 140 reporters from
The New York Times participated in the writing of the papers daily feature, “Portraits of Grief,” some for only a couple of days and others for months.
Howell Raines, the executive editor of the Times, writes the Foreword for
Portraits, and
Janny Scott, a reporter on the
Timess Metro desk, writes the Introduction.