POSTPONED: NYAM Author Night Series – I Heard the Sirens Scream: How Americans Responded to the 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks

Date: November 15, 2011
Time: 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM

The event has been postponed. A new date will be announced.

 
Available only as an e-book through Amazon, I Heard the Sirens Scream is a unique achievement in multiple ways. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, and a minute-by-minute account of the nightmare that was the autumn of 2001, this book breaks new ground both in its content and form. Released before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 and anthrax attacks, I Heard the Sirens Scream provides the definitive narrative of what happened between early September 2001 and late January 2002.

Most observers have viewed the anthrax and al-Qaeda episodes separately, imagining the tragedies were coincident in time, but completely disconnected. In contrast, I Heard the Sirens Scream reveals a political, emotional and investigative arc that links the terrorist hijackings and anthrax mailings, and shows that the combined impact impelled the war agenda and heightened anxieties among Americans. The United States of America was utterly transformed by the combination of the al-Qaeda and anthrax attacks.

Revelations abound in this book, which is loaded with “Wow!” moments. Whether you were 10, 30, 50, or 80 years old when these events transpired, I Heard the Sirens Scream will stun you. The book reads like watching a movie, as the events unfold day by terrible day. In Part Two of the book Garrett reveals what was actually in the plume that blew up from the World Trade Center cauldron for three months, inhaled by millions of rescue and clean-up workers, as well as residents and workers that lived and toiled downwind of the toxic air. The details of the anthrax investigation, as well as how individuals reacted to the spore-filled envelopes, are unveiled. The impact of these traumas on the psyche and mental health of hundreds of thousands of people in Washington and New York City was significantly more profound than is generally appreciated. And the political lessons derived from the events were largely incorrect, Garrett argues.

Why is this available exclusively in digital, e-book form? In part this is due to contractual limitations with another publisher, for a different book. And in part it is because Garrett choose to embrace the possibilities presented by the digital book era, including the potential of linking text (this book) with images and interactive programming.

Visit the companion experience to I Heard the Sirens Scream at www.lauriegarrett.com, where never-before-seen photographs of the events can be viewed. Add your personal 9/11 story to the site, and your review of this book.

On the tenth anniversary of the events that have defined the early 21st Century, I Heard the Sirens Scream  offers history, catharsis, indignation, and humanity.

About the Speaker(s)

Laurie Garrett has received the Pulitzer Prize, Peabody, George C. Polk (twice) and four Overseas Press Club Awards for her work as a journalist and author. Other books by Garrett include bestsellers The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994) and Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health (Hyperion, 2000). Garrett grew up in Los Angeles, graduated with honors from the University of California in Santa Cruz, and was named Alum of the Year in 1995, and one of the Forty Greatest Alums in 2010. She did graduate work in immunology, research at UC Berkeley and Stanford University, and was a postgraduate Fellow in the Harvard School of Public Health. She began her journalism career at KPFA radio in Berkeley, followed by freelancing work in sub-Saharan Africa. In the 1980s she was a Science Correspondent for National Public Radio, and during the 1990s she worked both as a science and foreign reporter for Newsday in New York.

Since 2004 Garrett has been Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She lives in Brooklyn and is an avid urban cyclist. Visit www.lauriegarrett.com.

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